Open letter

Please find below an open letter sent to Health Minister Adrian Dix on September 21, 2022 calling attention to the crisis in Specialty care. Scroll down to add your support.

September 21, 2022

The Honourable Adrian Dix, Minister of Health
Ministry of Health
1515 Blanshard Street, Victoria BC V8W 3C8

Dear Minister Dix, 

We are writing to you to express our deep concern for the estimated 1 million patients waiting to see a Specialist in British Columbia. We are requesting an urgent meeting with you to discuss this critical issue and potential solutions.

Our entire health care system is crumbling, but not enough is being done to improve Specialist patient outcomes or shorten our overcrowded wait lists. If we do not work together to find solutions, Specialty care in this province is going to erode even further. We have been hampered by years of increasing challenges compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic. Patients are getting sicker and dying on our waitlists. Primary care providers, if available, do their best to support patients until they are seen. Urgent Primary Care Centres and Emergency departments are overwhelmed and can’t provide immediate access to Specialists. Increased admissions strain the already overburdened hospital system, and cost even more in both dollars and patient suffering.

Long surgical wait times are the most widely known, but the crisis in wait times extends to the entire breadth of Specialist care.  Here are a few of the innumerable examples: 

• A patient with sudden hearing loss who if seen sooner wouldn’t have become permanently hearing impaired.
• Over 16,000 people waiting for an echocardiogram in Vancouver Coastal Health alone.
• Patients in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island with new cancer diagnoses waiting 2-3 months for their first visit with an Oncologist.  
• A lone respirologist in Northern Health, unable to recruit partners, who has had to close her practice to less urgent referrals for the last 2 years just to catch up and continue seeing urgent cases, meanwhile patients have to travel hundreds of kilometers to see the next closest Specialist. 
• One of the few remaining Dermatologists in Fraser Health getting crushed with 60 to 100 new referrals a day forced to limit accepting new referrals to only the most urgent cases.  
• Patients waiting on tenter-hooks for weeks for their lab results and surgical pathology because of lengthy backlogs in our labs.  
• A 3 year old with possible autism waiting more than 18 months for a formal assessment, while her anxiety-ridden parents are left in limbo with no support. 
• Interior BC patients forced to travel hundreds of kilometers just to obtain simple x-rays because local wait-times are untenable.

These are just some of the hundreds, if not thousands, of stories from across the province. Specialists care for complex patients who are often too ill to advocate for themselves. We need to stabilize and strengthen our Specialty Care infrastructure to support this vulnerable population.

We see the decline in Specialist care first hand every day and we are exhausted and demoralized; it is soul-destroying to be unable to provide the Specialty care that BC patients need and deserve. We request a meeting with you emergently, and that is not a word we use lightly. As you said on September 13, “We need to transform the health-care system”; to succeed, this must include repair of Specialty care. We can help you do that.

Respectfully,

Dr. Cassandra Lane Dielwart
Orthopedic Surgeon, Kelowna
President, BC Orthopedics Association

Dr. Tommy Gerschman
Pediatric Rheumatologist, North Vancouver
Past President, Consultant Specialists of BC

Dr. Charlotte Yong-Hing 
Radiologist, Vancouver 
President, BC Radiological Society

Dr. Maggie Aron
Otolaryngology Surgeon, Vancouver

Dr. Chris Hoag
Urologic Surgeon, North Vancouver
President, BC Urological Society
President, Consultant Specialists of BC

Dr. Brad Munt
Cardiologist, Vancouver
Past President, Society of Cardiology of British Columbia

Dr. Sharla-Rae Olsen 
Respirologist, Prince George
Department Head, Internal Medicine UHNBC 

Dr. Jon Slater
Pediatrician, Comox
Past President, Consultant Specialists of BC

Dr. Kamyar Kazemi 
Vascular Surgeon, New Westminster 
Section Head, Vascular Surgery 

Dr. Michael Eng
Kidney Transplant Surgeon, Vancouver
Division of Urology Head, PHC

Dr. Claudine Storness-Bliss 
Obstetrician-Gynecologist, Surrey 
Co-Dept Head, Obstetrics & Gynecology, SMH 

Dr. Daniel Wong
Cardiac Surgeon, New Westminster
Section Head, Cardiac Surgery

Dr. Glen Ward
Pediatrician, Langley 

Dr. Bahar Torabi
Pediatric Immunologist, Vancouver

Dr. Chih-ho Hong 
Dermatologist, Surrey 

Dr. Brian Mayson
Kidney Transplant Surgeon, Vancouver

Dr. Karen Seland 
Radiologist, Prince George 

Dr. Dana Wong
Otolaryngologist, Nanaimo

Dr. Fareen Din 
Nephrologist, Prince George 

Dr. Priya Manjoo
Endocrinologist, Victoria

Dr. David Kendler 
Endocrinologist, Vancouver 

Dr. David Harriman
Kidney Transplant Surgeon, Vancouver

Dr. Daniel Mendelsohn 
Neurosurgeon, North Vancouver 

Dr. Brenda Farnquist
Radiologist, Kelowna

Dr. Chris Nguan
Kidney Transplant Surgeon, Vancouver 

Dr. Lik Hang Lee
Lab Medicine Physician, Vancouver