This plan builds on our progress to deliver better health care for everyone in B.C. It lays out a plan to build a stronger health care workforce and deliver better services for people and families.
Free contraception.
Starting April 1, 2023, B.C. will be the first province or territory in Canada to make prescription contraception free to all residents.
Expanding mental-health and addiction treatment services.
To support people struggling with addiction, more than $586 million will add treatment and recovery beds throughout B.C., develop and roll out a new model of care to support people through their entire recovery journey, create wraparound supports, expand Indigenous treatment centres and develop new recovery communities to support people and their recovery through the long term.
Hiring, training and keeping more health-care workers.
Funding to help recruit and retain staff, redesign and rebalance workloads, make health-care spaces more culturally safe, and expand training and education seats for a full range of health-care professionals.
Cancer Care Action Plan.
Nearly everyone in B.C. has been touched by cancer at some point in their lives. Investing in better prevention strategies, earlier detection, faster treatment and team-based support services means that people in B.C. can get cancer care they can count on – where and when they need it.
Training more midwives.
Demand for midwives has increased rapidly in B.C. Increasing the number of midwife seats at UBC means more access to pregnancy care, especially in rural, remote & First Nations communities.
More peer support now available.
Foundry BC's peer support gives youth aged 12-24 the chance to connect online or in-person with another young person who’s there to listen.
Providing a new family physician compensation model that supports primary care needs.
Helping retain and attract more family physicians to the health care system.
Addiction is not a crime.
Addiction needs to be treated as a health care issue, not a criminal one. Starting Jan. 31, 2023, adults aged 18 and over who possess 2.5g or less of certain illegal drugs for personal use will no longer face criminal charges in B.C.
Helping more nurses practice in B.C., faster.
Too many barriers have prevented many nurses from entering or returning to work in the health care system. Removing these obstacles means more nurses can work in the field they love, and people in B.C. can get better access to the health care they deserve.
A new B.C. medical school.
Establishing a new medical school at SFU will allow B.C. to attract and train more future doctors to work in the health-care system.
More internationally trained family doctors working sooner.
Supporting three times more family physicians trained outside of Canada to work in B.C.’s health-care system, faster, and creating a new associate physician role to provide immediate solutions for people accessing health-care services.
Train more doctors.
Making sure B.C. has more family doctors and specialists in the long-term by increasing spots for future doctors at UBC Faculty of Medicine.
Train more health care workers on the job.
Providing the next generation of health care workers support to learn and earn at the same time. This means more people get access to health care, while workers grow their careers.
Expand the scope of practice for pharmacists, paramedics and first responders.
Pharmacists, paramedics and first responders will have expanded roles. Pharmacists will be able to refill some medication. This means shorter wait-times at walk-in clinics and emergency rooms.
Free education to become a health care assistant.
Tuition support for students in high-priority health care fields helps build a future workforce, while allowing more students to start their careers with less debt.
Develop a pool of travel-ready nurses.
A team of nurses who can travel into rural/remote communities means people can get access to health care without travelling long distances.
Reform the health care system to make it culturally safer.
More equitable access to health care to improve health outcomes. This means better training and education, so we can build a culturally safer system of care for everyone in B.C.
Recognize credentials for foreign-trained health care workers.
Making sure internationally educated health care workers who live in B.C. can work in their field. This means thousands of foreign-trained health care workers can help deliver the health care services people need.
Growing our health care workforce
Growing, recruiting and retaining health care workers is essential to meeting the health care needs of people in B.C. Bringing almost 4,000 hospital employees back into the public system will help people get more stable, consistent and supportive patient care.
How B.C. is delivering better health care services
Streamlining health care services.
Reducing wait times for surgeries, increasing availability of MRI’s and cancer screening services, and providing faster results. This means people will get the care and treatment they need, quickly.
Providing quality care for seniors.
Continuing to support people living in long-term care and assisted living homes means keeping them safe, while also increasing the number of care aides and community care providers delivering home care to seniors.
Building paths to recovery for people struggling with substance use.
Improved quality of care in treatment and recovery services for youth and adults. This means people experiencing mental-health and substance-use challenges will be able to better access the help they need, faster.
Investing in hospitals, clinics and post-secondary institutions.
Investing in new clinics, long-term care beds and hospitals throughout the province. This means improved and increased access to health services for people all around the province.
Improving mental health supports for everyone.
New care centres for youth, culturally safe programs for Indigenous Peoples, more virtual supports, expanded substance-use and harm-reduction services. This means when people are in a mental-health crisis, they need the best possible care as quickly as possible.
Building the health care systems people need now.
New primary care networks and Urgent and Primary Care Centres throughout B.C. are helping connect people to the primary care they need in their communities, while taking pressure off of walk-in clinics and emergency rooms.