As we come to the end of 2023, Island Health is proud of the progress made in improved access to care and health outcomes for residents of Vancouver Island and surrounding coastal communities. At the same time, we acknowledge the responsibility to address unmet needs, including access challenges due to unprecedented levels of demand arising out of and exacerbated by the pandemic.
Our pride always begins with our people, as the strength of our publicly funded system lies in the relationship between care providers and those receiving care. To support this crucial relationship and service expansion, this past year we surpassed 30,000 staff working for Island Health along with more than 2,000 medical staff and 1,000 volunteers. We are deeply appreciative for our teams’ commitment to providing the best care possible.
Working with Divisions of Family Practice partners, expanded care teams helped attach approximately 45,000 patients to a primary care provider in Primary Care Networks across our region. We are grateful to the family doctors, nurse practitioners and other team members who are strengthening this vital part of our system.
As we look to the new year, new payment models and increasing Primary Care Network investments will continue to attract more physicians to B.C. and help attach patients who are not fully supported today.
This calendar year we increased surgical access through expanded operating room capacity resulting in 1,500 additional procedures across Vancouver Island. We are also returning closer to full surgical capacity at Royal Jubilee and Victoria General hospitals through operating room and recovery room nursing recruitment initiatives, added beds, and innovations including same-day joint replacement surgeries. In 2024, increased efforts will be placed on working with surgeon partners to expand capacity.
We are building new publicly funded long-term care homes in Campbell River, Colwood, and Lantzville which will add more than 750 beds for people who need them. When open, we will staff them with new care providers including those taking advantage of the Ministry of Health’s Health Career Access Program.
While we continue this work, we invested in community services to help more seniors stay healthy at home. We expanded and improved home support and virtual care services in 2023, with more than 2,500 patients supported by Community Virtual Care Programs – palliative care, caregiver support, heart failure, COPD, diabetes, kidney disease, and hypertension.
When seniors require hospital care, we helped them get home safely with early discharge support, increased home support hours and community-based respiratory therapy and expanded transition suites. We will continue to increase and innovate in community care in 2024.
For generations, the health-care system has caused Indigenous people harm through individual acts of racism as well as systemic racism. We are committed to improving our relationships with First Nations, Metis, and Inuit people by cultivating an understanding of cultures, and ensuring safe and respectful care and conditions for all Indigenous people. We are continuously learning and remain committed to eliminating racism, increasing Indigenous representation, and promoting a speak-up culture where patients and staff feel safe to report racism they witness or experience.
Through new innovative approaches, including Care and Connection Kiosks outside emergency departments and a permanent indoor inhalation overdose prevention service in Victoria – the first of its size anywhere in North America – we continued to make leading-edge investments to support people impacted by the poisoned drug supply. Even with these and many other investments, we continue to see unacceptable levels of harm. We will advance our new addiction medicine program in 2024, continuing new approaches as it is clear much more needs to be done.
We invested in new infrastructure and services to ensure equitable access across our communities. 2023 saw the addition of a CT scanner for Port Hardy Hospital to serve North Vancouver Island residents. An expanded Nanaimo Intensive Care Unit began accepting patients, and a renovation of the emergency department at West Coast General Hospital was completed. In 2024, construction of the new Cowichan District Hospital will continue, as well as planning for the new Nanaimo BC Cancer centre.
Communities have told us they appreciate the improvements made over the past year and clearly remind us there is much more work to do for us to meet the needs of people today and in the future.
At Island Health, we all hold this responsibility with the greatest sense of commitment and humility. As we look to the new year, the Island Health family will strive to do their best in 2024 to support the needs of families across Vancouver Island and surrounding coastal communities.
Leah Hollins
Island Health Board chair