SURREY, B.C., (Rajeev Sharma): CentreBC Leader Elenore Sturko has announced a proposed health-care plan focused on preventing emergency room closures, reducing treatment delays and making hospital performance more transparent to the public.
A key component of the platform is a new rural emergency room stabilization fund worth $25 million annually. The proposed fund would cover temporary doctors and nurses, travel expenses and virtual emergency room support to help hospitals maintain services when staffing shortages threaten operations.
Sturko said patients facing medical emergencies should not have to worry about finding a closed emergency department. She described the funding proposal as one part of a broader effort to improve access to urgent care in communities across British Columbia.
The party also plans to make the existing rural retention bonus permanent and extend it to communities experiencing repeated emergency room closures. In addition, CentreBC has pledged to introduce an ER Accountability Act requiring public reporting of every closure, with a target of reducing unplanned shutdowns by half by the 2029-30 fiscal year.
Beyond emergency services, the proposed platform aims to expand access to planned operations. CentreBC says it would increase the number of scheduled surgeries by 15,000 annually by 2030-31, supported by additional surgical capacity and the recruitment of operating room nurses and anaesthesia staff.
Another major commitment is the creation of a provincewide public health dashboard by spring 2028. The proposed system would provide information on surgeries, diagnostic scans, specialist services and emergency department availability across hospitals and regions. It would also display regional figures on residents’ access to family doctors, allowing patients to track service availability and compare waiting times.
Under the plan, each health authority would receive public targets for surgical procedures, scans and emergency room waits through its annual mandate letter. The contracts and compensation of health authority chief executives would also be linked to performance against those targets.
CentreBC further proposes monthly updates to the public dashboard, quarterly reports to the provincial legislature and annual data reviews by the Auditor General. If a region fails to meet its targets, it would have 90 days to publish a recovery plan outlining how it intends to improve performance.
Sturko said the proposals are intended to combine additional resources with measurable commitments, giving patients clearer information about access to care while strengthening accountability across the public health system.
The commitments form part of CentreBC’s broader election platform. If implemented, the measures would require funding, staffing and coordination across provincial health authorities to meet the proposed timelines and service targets.
The party’s full platform is available at www.centrebc.ca/platform.
