B.C. mayor seeks physician assistants pilot to ease ER crisis

The mayor of Merritt says he hopes a pilot project to ease pressures on B.C.’s emergency departments comes to his town soon.

Two physician assistants have now been hired in the Saanich Peninsula Hospital ER, on Vancouver Island, the first of their role in the province.

The assistants are only allowed to operate in emergency rooms right now, and they must work under the supervision of a doctor.

The project has been in the works for a couple years. In late 2023, the province said it would provide another resource to accessing healthcare for patients in ERs.

Merritt Mayor Mike Goetz tells 1130 NewsRadio he’s been calling on the province and the Interior Health Authority to get assistants hired in his town for months, and he hopes it happens soon.

“Physician assistants and even midwives at some point would help communities that are facing doctor nurse shortages… Nothing’s off the table, so let’s have a look at everything,” said Goetz.

Merritt’s sole hospital saw dozens of emergency room closures last year. But Goetz says that has eased slightly in the last few months, since doctors in the city were able to move to a alternative payment plan.

“We are seeing more doctors come into the community. And we’ve also offered free room and board for nurses and doctors, and then two fully furnished places for them to to land in if they need to be here. So we haven’t had as many shutdowns. We’ve had a couple, but we still need to work on our nurse complement, and we’ll continue to work with getting doctors here,” said Goetz.

He says he’s optimistic that B.C.’s new health minister, Josie Osbourne, will have a better understanding of the problems facing small town healthcare than her predecessor — given that she once served as mayor of Tofino.

“She knows the difficulties of smaller communities. She’s rural. But also, again, we are looking at a situation where she’s inheriting a bit of a mess, and it all depends who she has on staff. As mayors, we’ll meet with her, but we’ll start to expect to see something move forward.”

In a statement to 1130 NewsRadio, the provincial Ministry of Health said Saanich Peninsula Hospital adding two physician assistants to their emergency department team is “an exciting step.” It says four more physician assistant openings have been posted in Prince George and Dawson Creek.

“Other health authorities are in process to identify emergency department sites where they could introduce physician assistants,” the ministry added.