The demands for public health care services in B.C. seem to be increasing at an unprecedented rate and the problems that creates are likely to get worse before they get better, if they ever do.
Two things are driving health care demands and a looming corresponding increase in costs: record immigration levels and a rapidly aging population.
While there has been a fair amount of attention paid to the impact high immigration levels have had on the housing crisis, less scrutinized is the enormous impact they are having on our health care system.
I’ve just received the statistics showing the increase in the number of people who registered in B.C.’s Medical Service Plan the past two years and it is a staggering figure.
Over the past two years, more than 337,000 more people joined the system. That is the equivalent of adding the population of both Burnaby and North Vancouver to a system that is already stretched to the limit.
And the increase last year was almost 40,000 more than the year previous. You can see a trend developing.
To put this astonishing figure further in perspective, that level of population would need an additional 300 family doctors just to service them, let alone the other 5.3 million people already registered (based on the assumption the average family doctor has about 1,200 patients on their roster).
Compounding the problem is the rising levels of acuity and a rapidly aging population.
The senior population in B.C. has already exceeded 1 million people. Over the next decade, the number of seniors in B.C. will increase from 20 per cent of the population to 24 per cent.
By next year, B.C. will have more people aged 65 years and older than people aged 17 and younger.
Simply put, the more people who are over 65 the more costs they will incur in the health care system. According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, health care spending for seniors is three times that of those under 64 years, on a per capita basis.
The B.C. government budget shows the planned spending increase for the health ministry in the coming fiscal year (which begins April 1) will be about $1.2 billion, bringing to almost $29.9 billion. The increase in the following year of 2025/26 is projected to be smaller, at less than $800 million.
But this smaller increase is partly predicated on the assumption that MSP costs will actually go down in that year. Given the huge increase we are seeing in population growth, that scenario seems highly unlikely so costs will likely continue to grow at a higher rate.
While the twin pressure tsunami of a growing, aging population will continue to gnaw at our system, the good news is the number of surgeries continues to grow and so does the number of nurses and doctors being recruited to work in the system.
However, cancer treatment waits times continue to be frustratingly long and these two cost pressures may ensure that remains the case for quite some time, even with the government’s recent unveiling of a new 10-year, $440-million cancer treatment plan.
Another senior-specific disease is dementia and Alzheimer’s, and the number of people falling victim to them will likely increase over the next decade.
Add it all up and it means British Columbians will need to spend more and more on an already expensive system with no guarantee things will dramatically improve. Even maintaining the status quo may be the most realistic expectation in the coming years.
Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global BC.
