Jeff Nagel

Black Press

Health minister Kevin Falcon says the Fraser Health Authority will have to live within its budget and find ways to deliver more cost-effective health care.

“We are going to be requiring all the health authorities live within the budget that will be providing them a 20 per cent increase over the next three years,” Falcon said in an interview Wednesday.

“Those pressures are legitimate,” he said. “But they’re going to have to manage within that 20 per cent lift.”

Falcon spoke a week after the premier’s cabinet shuffle moved the Surrey-Cloverdale MLA from transportation to health.

Cuts are on the table as possible options to deal with a more than $100-million budget shortfall at Fraser Health this year.

Officials at the health authority have warned the increased funding from Victoria is far short of what’s needed to keep pace with what they say are cost increases of at least 10 per cent a year.

“I’m not pretending there’s not pressures they have to deal with,” Falcon said, but added the increase allotted is “reasonable” given the “serious” economic situation.

The combative former transportation minister came under scrutiny immediately after taking over as health minister when he said part of the challenge is cutting through “silly ideological arguments” to improve health care.

Falcon said he doesn’t regret the comment.

“Any time you get talking about any kind of change or innovation in health care, you immediately get folks like the NDP talking about how we want to move towards a U.S.-style system of medicine. When nobody in the system I’m aware of thinks that’s the right way to go.”

Asked what fundamental principles the health care system should continue to uphold, Falcon replied: “Publicly funded. Universally accessible. Portable. All the principles that are enunciated in the Canada Health Act.”

Within that framework, Falcon said, reforms and better results are possible.

Falcon said benefits are already flowing from the pay-for-performance trial at Vancouver Coastal Health that provides incentives to improve practices.

“We’ve seen some great successes there,” he said, noting the same model is being brought to Fraser. “We actually reward the hospitals and the emergency departments for doing a better job in managing the patient flow.”

Falcon said such “straightforward kinds of innovations” are opposed by the NDP but “warmly received” by hospitals, workers and unions.

Public-private partnerships to build new hospitals are often proving worthwhile, he said, citing the new Abbotsford Hospital.

The minister said he’s looking forward to proposals from doctors, nurses, ministry staff and others.

“I want to hear the new ideas or maybe old ideas that no one’s had the courage to act on.”

The need for change is urgent, he said.

The health care system in B.C. has gone from 35 per cent of the provincial budget in 2001 to almost 45 per cent now, he said, and will reach 50 per cent within five years.

“It is an unsustainable growth curve,” Falcon said.

“The easiest thing for me to do would be to try to muddle along and keep watching the health care budget consume more and more of the budget of government,” he said, adding that will inevitably eat into the province’s ability to provide other services.

Falcon said he’s excited about his new role.

“The challenges are huge – they’re as big as anything I’ve seen in government,” he said.

But he also set the tone for his response to future disappointments.

“There will be mistakes that we will make. When we do we will try and be up front enough to acknowledge that and move on and just keep trying to do a better job.”