More than a decade on the front lines has provided Marina Sapozhnikov with an inside perspective on the state of the health care system.
Sapozhnikov, the BC Conservative candidate for the Juan de Fuca-Malahat riding, has run a clinic, worked in the ER, and acute and long-term care in B. C. and Alberta, often at the same time.
Sapozhnikov was born in Ukraine and graduated from medical school in 1986. After moving to Israel in 1990, she needed to confirm her medical license and complete her residency.
"My lifelong dream, however, was to live in Canada, and eventually in 2004 this dream became a reality," said the Cobble Hill resident. After completing her Canadian licensing in 2006, she worked in a small town in Alberta before moving to Vancouver Island in 2013, where she worked as a family doctor in Cobble Hill, except for several years in remote communities in Northern B.C.
"That was the beginning of my understanding of the deep problems within B.C.’s health care," Sapozhnikov noted.
"I love practicing medicine and seeing results of my work gives me a deep sense of fulfillment and joy," Sapozhnikov explained. "However, in the last several years the situation within the health care system has been in a downward spiral. Waiting times became longer and longer, and I was helplessly watching people suffer and not able to do anything."
The worst part, however, was the deteriorating situation with drug addictions.
"I have never before witnessed such constantly growing numbers of grieving parents, whose children died from addiction," Sapozhnikov said. " Several patients died from drug overdose while waiting for treatment. I started seeing children addicted to drugs."
Although politics was not a consideration, those experiences and other issues including increasing poverty, seniors becoming homeless, and people worried about being able to buy food, led to Sapozhnivov's decision to run.
"As important as many initiatives are, for me, as a physician, the health care reform proposed by the Conservatives is paramount," she said. "It is not about throwing more money to patch up the holes."
The Conservatives call for a principally different approach that puts a patient in the centre of the system for everyone under a single payer system, with a patient-based funding model that allows patients faster access to care.
"This province is in crisis, whether we talk about health care, addiction, crime, the economy, infrastructure, or reckless government spending," she said. "What this province needs is basic common sense, and BC Conservatives is the only party that offers that."
