April

Although many first aid training programs are offered without age restrictions, participants in our program reported that many seniors do not access these programs, even though seniors are at greater risk of experiencing or encountering the medical emergencies covered in such programs and could benefit greatly from the lessons.

After 43 years in the trenches of general practice, I applaud the fortitude and wisdom of the Pemberton clinic physicians billing employers $50 when a patient requests a note for time loss due to illness. This is proactive and insightful. Hopefully, it is the foot in the door and may precede changes in other intrusions into the GP’s office that are beyond the doctor’s control and invoked by government, lawyers, and the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Primary care in BC desperately needs to be improved. We require a mechanism to attract capital resources to build the appropriate infrastructure necessary to provide bona fide medical homes for our patients. The medical home model, which we all theorize about, must have physical space to accommodate 15 to 20 family doctors as well as many nurse practitioners, registered nurses, and support staff to adequately provide 24/7 comprehensive primary care to our dedicated patients.

As a palliative care physician who is also involved with medical assistance in dying (MAID), I would encourage my palliative care colleagues (who are not conscientious objectors) to get more involved as well. By doing so, you would get to better understand which BC residents are actually requesting MAID and why they are doing so rather than relying on data from the Netherlands or Belgium or other foreign lands. Instead of waiting until national/provincial statistics are compiled and released, why not get involved as assessors/providers now?

I do not believe this is only an issue of us providing better care for the dying [“Medical assistance in dying: Living with dignity until life naturally ends,” BCMJ 2016;59:49]. Although I agree that we need to study how to do this better.