The provincial government says it has reached a new milestone in providing primary care to British Columbians.
Premier David Eby and Health Minister Josie Osborne held a media event on Wednesday, boasting B.C.’s achievements in improving health care provincewide.
Eby says more than 600,000 residents have been connected to a family doctor or nurse practitioner since 2023, including 233,000 in 2025 alone.
He says the current pace is more than 4,000 people connected to care per week.
As of Wednesday, Eby said, “Seventy-seven per cent of people in British Columbia have a primary care provider.”
The premier says he knows the province has more to do.
“Seventy-seven per cent is not 100 per cent, and that is the goal that we are moving to.”
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But he says the steady increase will help get patients seen before developing serious conditions, help to take the pressure off B.C.’s emergency rooms, and prevent health-care worker burnout.
Last month, Eby and Osborne shared that the province had managed to recruit 400 new health-care workers from the U.S. between March 2025 and January 2026.
As of Wednesday, Eby says, the number is now over 500.
“That includes doctors, nurses, and health professionals, people who are caring for folks in our communities right now or who are making their preparations to move to British Columbia,” said the premier, adding that 2,000 American professionals have applied.
Osborne says the 500 new recruits include 109 doctors, more than one quarter of whom are family physicians.
“This builds on the much bigger efforts that we are making to grow our health workforce here at home,” she said. “B.C. now has more doctors per capita than any other province in Canada.”
The update comes as the province’s health-care system deals with significant strain, including a shortage of OBGYNs that has prompted several temporary maternity unit closures at hospitals in Maple Ridge and White Rock, and emergency department closures.
– With files from Raynee Novak.