B.C. has recruited hundreds of family doctors. It’s still not enough [Video]

When Jennie Passche gets sick, she finds herself in a competition to get care.

The 65-year-old in Esquimalt, on B.C.’s Vancouver Island, says she has to wake up early to call her community’s urgent and primary care centre, which opened in 2021 to provide same-day care and alleviate the family doctor shortage.

But by the time she gets through, she says, it’s usually too late.

“It just seems so hopeless. What’s going to happen to me? Who am I going to see?”

Passche was taking part in a call-in segment on CBC’s BC Today meant to mark a milestone for B.C.: 1,001 new family care physicians hired over the past two years following changes made to the province’s payment model. The hirings also came after a record number of people who did not previously have a family doctor – 250,000 – were connected to some sort of primary care provider in 2024.

WATCH | How B.C. changed its payment …