Mayoral candidate Sylvia Bishop and her Team Delta slate of municipal-council candidates today kicked off the final two-month sprint to Election Day on Oct. 20 with a pledge to improve health-care services for all Delta residents.
“It is a well-documented fact that the City of Delta, along with other communities in the Fraser Health Authority region, has far-fewer family physicians than cities and towns elsewhere in British Columbia,” said Bishop. “Although we understand that both Fraser Health and the Province of B.C. are working diligently to recruit more doctors and other health-care providers, the truth is that Delta has a growing and aging population. As a consequence, our city faces a real need for more general-practitioner physicians.
“Team Delta and I believe the time is right, therefore, to show leadership on this issue by proposing an innovative solution intended to attract more GPs to our community.”
Speaking at an election-campaign breakfast at the Fishermen’s Hall in Ladner Monday, Bishop said her proposal to entice family physicians to the City of Delta was the first component of a five-point ‘Action Plan on Health Care’ that she and her colleagues will unveil over the coming weeks.
Team Delta’s physician-recruitment proposal, she added, would utilize forecast revenues from a new $70 million casino and hotel complex to be built by Gateway Casinos and Entertainment Ltd. at the site of the Delta Town & Country Inn.
Construction of the casino-hotel will begin this fall and when completed is expected to generate 700 new jobs for local residents, as well as $1.5 to $3.0 million annually in new revenues for the City of Delta.
“Our city is fortunate to have new casino-related revenues that will allow us to address pressing community needs,” said Bishop. “Our own research, combined with ongoing discussions with local residents, lead us to believe that health-care in Delta is a key challenge that must to be addressed. While many Delta residents believe that our existing Health services are generally adequate, they also have told us that considerable improvement is needed. In addition, our changing demographics signal that Delta soon is going to see a marked increase in the demand for GPs and other health-care providers.”
On July 11, Bishop and Team Delta announced that, if elected to council, they would establish the city’s first Economic Development Office. Bishop today said that the proposed Office will play a lead role in delivering Delta’s family-physician recruitment and retention efforts.
“Business people in the 21st century know that the variety and quality of services available to their employees is vital when it comes to decision-making as to where they should look to locate, re-locate or expand,” said Bishop. “By increasing the number of family physicians who live and practice in our city, we believe that Delta will become even more attractive to investors and others seeking to do business with us.”
The activities Delta’s new EDO might undertake to recruit new general-practitioners to the city include:
*offering financial incentives (such as student loans, bursaries, etc.) to medical-school students who contract to practice in Delta upon graduation;
*attending medical-related job fairs to identify and attract physicians who are looking to re-locate;
*assisting medical students and graduates with recruitment-visit costs, such as air-fares, accommodation, meals and other incentives;
*providing financial incentives (such as low-interest or forgivable loans, free or low-cost community-membership fees, subsidized re-location expenses, etc.) to GPs who move to and open a practice in Delta; and
*providing practice-establishment support by assisting medical-school graduates and re-locating family-physicians with on-going business challenges, such as finding new nurses and office staff, arranging office and utility contracts, etc.
