Our Crumbling Health Care System…
June 25, 2025 • Written by Dr. Hannah webb
The BC healthcare system is in crisis.
The system is slowly crumbling with the ongoing reverberations of the toll of the pandemic on top of an already overburdened overstretched system. Many people on Salt Spring (and elsewhere) don’t have a family doctor - this has become the accepted norm. Our hospital is understaffed and struggling.
A couple of years ago we had a nurse working at Madrona who also was a staff in the emergency department at the local hospital. She struggled with how stressful the hospital job was and eventually had to quit – as her naturopathic physician I can attest that there were many very real ways it was affecting her physical and mental wellbeing. She remarked that part of the burden leading to her burnout was the stress of knowing she couldn’t provide the kind of care she would like to provide. The current situation is hard on everyone, patients and providers alike.
At Madrona we witness it from the side lines – we hear many stories from patients who face challenges accessing care and or don’t have a GP. Creative solutions are necessary. Our clinic has grown at the same time as the struggles of the conventional medical system have become more and more apparent. This gap has provided room for our team to grow into as we’ve blossomed over the past two years.
I’ve become really passionate about the ways naturopathic medicine can fill the gap in primary care. NDs can do physical exams, can prescribe, can write lab requisitions, and can refer for imaging. At the clinic we regularly do PAP exams, monitor mental health and meds, refill asthma medications, treat UTIs, remove stitches, support patients in managing blood pressure, and more. We flush out ear wax, do wart freezing, check for parasites, check for BV, do skin cultures, do breast exams. And. The list goes on.
And, our clinic is private pay. Labwork and imagining done through us is private pay. This is inaccessible to some, and this is a major challenge in our model of care. This is something we’re passionate about addressing – more on this to come in a future article. But for now, I will note that often this can be managed in a conversation with your doctor (i.e. using less expensive treatment strategies, strategizing accessing what you can through a walk-in clinic, doing more recommendations per visit and following up less often). And, sometimes that’s not enough. It’s absolutely a fact this care is not available to everyone. And yet, and yet, being outside the system affords us the opportunity for creativity, innovation, and to build new models for patient care.
We’ve become a place at Madrona conversations are had about the many challenges of the health care system, and about our collective dreams and hopes for the future. We’re a place where patients have the time to be fully seen and heard by their provider. We offer patient centred model of care. We offer a uniquely appropriate to Salt Spring integrative method of care that doesn’t demonize any end of the medical spectrum, and has a team of practitioners who can have an informed conversation with you about herbal medicines, lifestyle changes, homeopathics, as well as prescription medications and the tools of the conventional medical system. What is right for you? You have the opportunity to have a unique answer to that in collaboration with your provider.
There are no instant solutions to this crumbling healthcare system. Nor is Madrona a complete solution by any stretch of the imagination, but, we offer with confidence and grace our contribution to as many aspects of patient care as we can.