A Nanaimo woman含羞草研究社檚 recent death of an infection at age 23 raised health-care debate in the B.C. legislature yesterday.

During question period Monday, Feb. 26, Conservative Party of B.C. MLA Bruce Banman brought up the case of a Nanaimo Unitarian Shelter worker who died this past fall at a Vancouver hospital after months of allegedly misdiagnosed health problems.

含羞草研究社淪ophia, like close to a million other British Columbians, did not have a family doctor and struggled to get a diagnosis for her rapidly declining health,含羞草研究社� the MLA said, adding that the woman含羞草研究社檚 death was preventable and suggesting the health-care system in British Columbia is broken.

B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix said the provincial government feels the grief of the community and the woman含羞草研究社檚 family, and said there is an independent review process in the works that he hopes will bring answers.

含羞草研究社淚t含羞草研究社檚 difficult under the circumstances of someone dying so young to bring comfort. But to bring knowledge of circumstances [and] improvement and review for the system, but also justice for people, that含羞草研究社檚 what we含羞草研究社檙e doing in that case,含羞草研究社� Dix said.

The health minister pointed to changes that have been made to the primary care system and said B.C. gained 700 new family doctors practising longitudinal family practice last year, and said there are more than 200 new doctors in a new-to-practice contract program and more than 200 nurse practitioners in a similar program.

含羞草研究社淎ccording to the statistics that are widely used in this house, in the media and everywhere else, there are fewer people now looking for a family doctor today than there were in 2017 in the context of a time when we含羞草研究社檝e added literally 700,000 more people in the province,含羞草研究社� Dix said. 含羞草研究社淲e have more work to do. We don含羞草研究社檛 see the significant achievements together with doctors of the last few months as the end of a process. But it含羞草研究社檚 the beginning. We含羞草研究社檝e got to continue to do work, and we含羞草研究社檙e going to continue to do that work.含羞草研究社�

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Nanaimo Unitarian Shelter executive director Paul Manly wrote an about the worker含羞草研究社檚 death last week after the woman含羞草研究社檚 mother asked him to help amplify the story.

Manly noted that in Nanaimo, there are 20,000 people without a family doctor, and only one walk-in clinic, making it difficult for patients to get the care they need and deserve.

含羞草研究社淥ur health-care system is in a deep crisis. Our hospital consistently runs over capacity, staff are overworked, there are not enough doctors and patients are suffering the consequences,含羞草研究社� Manly wrote. 含羞草研究社淚n this case we lost a compassionate worker, and a mother lost her child.含羞草研究社�

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