A recent editorial quotes a Canadian Institute for Health Information report and argues that the B.C. health system is tops in Canada - and also, that radical changes made by the B.C. Liberal government have been made without harming quality of care.

It is worth noting that the "private, not-for-profit" CIHI is, in fact, funded by federal, provincial and territorial governments and is therefore not an independent body. Moreover, CIHI's major finding is that B.C.'s health authorities have been saving us money.

This is another case of statistics making things look much better than they really are.

The reality is that the B.C. health-care system is in serious decline and will continue to decline under the Liberal government's policies of privatization, unaccountable regional health authorities and regressive personnel relations.

All of these "radical changes" have cost our system unnecessary millions of dollars - and those of us who have been involved in the system for more than 50 years know this on a first-hand basis.

Citizens in B.C. increasingly have had to resort to contacting the media to resolve problems with our health-care system. The government-appointed regional health boards do not respond to complaints except to refuse access to information. These boards should be serving communities, but instead act as a smokescreen for the government.

These boards are top-heavy with appointees from business, and there are no elected appointees from municipal councils, regional districts or school boards. Administrations are equally top-heavy and overpaid, even while there have been significant cutbacks to staffing levels in care facilities and to workers providing community health-care services.

Moreover, the B.C. government's obsession with private-public capital projects (for example, the Abbotsford hospital or the Royal Jubilee patient tower) has meant higher costs (such as higher costs of borrowing) than if they had been built publicly.

The people of B.C. have billions of dollars of longterm capital debt, thanks to these P3 contractual arrangements administered and promoted by yet another government bureaucracy, Partnerships B.C.

While the government mismanages the health-care system, it is failing to address the real determinants of health - poverty, affordable housing, access to quality education, social supports and protection of our environment.

Sadly, the Stephen Harper government is also failing the citizens of Canada. The recent healthaccord meetings in Victoria were an unmitigated failure, and the flip-flop positions taken by Premier Christy Clark will not help B.C. to negotiate a fair funding formula from the Conservative federal government.

The people of B.C. deserve and can achieve the best health-care system in Canada - but there is much to be done.

Our system needs a radical change of direction. If we invest more of our provincial resources to promote health and keeping people healthy, we will not have to spend so much money on illness.

And if we provide those resources "closer to home," as was recommended in the last Royal Commission on Health Report (in 1990), costly emergency and acute-care services will be used less frequently and more effectively.

We need more public primary-care centres, using nurse practitioners and other health professionals as recommended in Roy Romanow's report on health. We are short of family doctors in B.C. - 1,000 people on the Saanich Peninsula alone are without access to a general practitioner, and the walk-in clinics are overloaded with people seeking access to a doctor.

The statistics might say that B.C. has the best health-care system in Canada. But is it good enough?

Not on your life.

Carol Pickup has been involved in the health-care system for her entire adult life - as a registered nurse, hospital trustee, chairwoman of Capital Regional District Health as a Saanich councillor and CRD director, and a member of the first interim CRD Health Council (the forerunner to the CRD Regional Health Authority and subsequently the Vancouver Island Health Authority). She co-ordinates a volunteer advocacy service for seniors at Blanshard Community Centre.