Transparency Grade: D
Annual Growth 2017-2025
What's the data showing?
Each of BC's decentralized health authorities operates various local hospitals, facilities, and services to deliver care. Each individual site has its own administration responsible for its operation.
In addition, each health authority has a central "head office" to organize and coordinate across all its sites. This data shows how annual expenses for these multiple "head office" bureaucracies (separate from site-level administration) have grown.
From 2017-2025, "head office" spending increased from:
$1.4 billion to $3.8 billion
From $285 to $661 per person.
See also: Corporate Spending Breakdown
What's the opportunity?
Lack of public scrunity has led to incredible growth of "head office" expenses with no oversight. That's a lot of bureaucracy. Many of the resources devoted to that could likely be better spent on front-line care. As an example, the $2.4 billion increase shown in the chart would pay for 6000 family doctors, including overhead.
Source: Audited Financial Statements
These are published annually by the Ministry of Health and each health authority, and available on their respective websites. Chart shows expenditures on 'executive and support' services from MOH and 'corporate' expenditures from health authorities. These are the line items that cover centralized costs including bureaucracy not directly related to program-level spending, e.g., hospital admin. What exactly do they cover then? Good question. Definitely not front-line care. And what results do we get for that? As they provide only a high-level breakdown, these financial statements don't say.
Population data [BC Stats]: population.csv
| MOH | FH | IH | VCH | VIHA | NH | PHSA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 2017 | 2017 | 2017 | 2017 | 2017 | 2017 |
| 2018 | 2018 | 2018 | 2018 | 2018 | 2018 | 2018 |
| 2019 | 2019 | 2019 | 2019 | 2019 | 2019 | 2019 |
| 2020 | 2020 | 2020 | 2020 | 2020 | 2020 | 2020 |
| 2021 | 2021 | 2021 | 2021 | 2021 | 2021 | 2021 |
| 2022 | 2022 | 2022 | 2022 | 2022 | 2022 | 2022 |
| 2023 | 2023 | 2023 | 2023 | 2023 | 2023 | 2023 |
| 2024 | 2024 | 2024 | 2024 | 2024 | 2024 | 2024 |
| 2025 | 2025 | 2025 | 2025 | 2025 | 2025 | 2025 |
How does head-office bureaucracy compare with…
Medical care? While annual corporate expenses increased 170% in that time (i.e., more than doubled in only 8 years), MSP (doctors, labs, etc.) expenditures increased only 79%.
Charitable giving? The $2.4 billion annual increase in head office spending since 2017 is around how much British Columbians donate to ALL charities in one year.
Primary care? The annual $278 million increase in the past year is more than double the $130 million total cost of all 30+ of the UPCC's the province put in place to offer essential primary care in our communities. Of if you prefer, over $1300/month for each of the provinces 8017 family doctors, many who struggle to pay overhead costs.
What's missing?
$3.8 billion is a lot of taxpayer money to spend without clear benefits. Much of it may be well spent, but without reliable data, we're really just guessing. We need clear and transparent accounting to determine the value received for that spending.
We're talking several billion dollars that could potentially be spent directly on front-line care. Even a small portion of that could make a huge difference. Other provinces and countries spend far less on health administration.