President's Report, Val Avery
HSA members have known for a quite some time what works and what doesn’t when it comes to the delivery of quality health care, and our work in promoting policy recommendations has been grounded in this expertise. We are pleased to see that many of our recommendations are now coming to fruition.
Periods are a fact of life. Monthly menstruation products are a necessity. And nobody should have to pick between feeding their family and being able to afford basic hygiene products. Yet far too many people – especially those living in poverty – simply can’t afford them.
HSA welcomes today’s announcement that government will fund 37,000 more MRI scans in the public system during the coming year, compared to last year.
BC has had the longest wait times for MRI in the country for several years, resulting in many patients paying for medically necessary scans at private clinics. Some of these patients then use these scans to jump the queue to obtain surgery or other treatment in the public system, meaning those already on public wait lists for treatment wait longer.
HSA welcomes the provincial government’s new four-part surgical strategy announced today aimed at reducing wait times for surgery around the province.
The initial phase of the strategy includes funding for an additional 4,000 hip and knee replacements in the coming year – an increase of 34 per cent – with long-term funding to continue increasing the number of surgeries in future years.
Periods are a fact of life and menstruation products are a necessity. Nobody should have to pick between feeding their family and being able to afford basic hygiene products. Yet far too many people – especially those living in poverty – simply can’t afford them.
“We know it is a struggle for food banks and community groups to collect menstruation products. Despite the need, donations are low. We wanted to do something about this,” says HSA President Val Avery.
Health Sciences Association of BC says today’s provincial budget makes critical social investments that will strengthen public services and make life more affordable for all British Columbians.
HSA represents 18,000 highly trained specialists working in diagnostic MRI, sonography and lab testing, physiotherapy, social work, radiation therapy, pharmacy, early childhood development and many other health science and social service professions.
The HSA's national union, the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), has launched a 6o-second commercial now airing throughout the 2018 Winter Olympics on CBC.
CoDevelopment Canada (CoDev), a BC-based non-governmental organization working for social change in the Americas, is inviting interested HSA members to travel with a learning delegation to Guatemala in March 2018 to meet with some of CoDev’s partner organizations supporting women in Guatemala, who face enormous economic and social challenges.
The ten-day delegation is scheduled for March 17 to 26. Participants are responsible for their own costs, estimated at $1300 to $1570, plus airfare. Applications are open until January 30, 2018.
HSA'S newest ad shines a light on the professions delivering mental health care in BC.
A random survey conducted last fall found that 75 per cent of members are concened that workload is negatively impacting patient care.
Over the course of 2016, HSA consulted thousands of members in several surveys. Over 5000 members completed a short survey on workload. Another 1400 completed a comprehensive survey. A futher 2500 were randomly sampled.
