Small towns now have a better chance of maintaining emergency medical services.
A new funding option was announced this week by the provincial government aimed at easing the Emergency Room strain in rural communities.
It seeks to give existing doctors better equipment and reinforcements to keep ER services operating smoothly.
"Funding of up to $200,000 per year will be provided to groups of rural, fee-for-service physicians who commit to work as a team to ensure reliable public access to emergency services at their rural community hospital," said a Ministry of Health statement on the new program.
"Physicians will work with the regional health authority to develop a community-specific plan for how funding might best be applied."
There is $10 million available in the province-wide envelope.
"The vast number of our Emergency Rooms are eligible, so we hope this will be another tool to help us sustain ER coverage," said Dr. David Butcher, Northern Health's vice president of medicine and clinical programs. "It should help ERs like Burns Lake where the coverage has been difficult and there have been community concerns. Accessing this funding will give new alternatives for building continuous ER coverage.
Local physicians can engage a nurse practitioner to ease their workload, or bring in a locum to cover vacations, it provides for creative ways of designing that coverage."
Each community has its own needs, said Butcher, so it will be up to each community's medical team to come up with a plan if they want to augment what they are doing. The plan will form their application for funding.
Applications are being accepted immediately, according to the Joint Standing Committee on Rural issues, a collective formed by the BC Medical Association (BCMA) and Ministry of Health.
The BCMA and ministry have been in dialogue for at least two years coming up with this new program, said Butcher. The announcement was a surprise in its timing, but not in its content.
"It is one plank in the ongoing platform we are building for sustainability," he said. "It is not the solution, but it is part of a set of solutions we want to get to."
There are about 60 rural hospitals in B.C. that provide emergency services on a fee-for-service basis.
