Woss resident Nigel Poulton was grateful when Island Health provided a drive to his medical appointment in Victoria in April.
But he says he was floored that the health authority sent taxis whose combined meters ticked up to $2,248 for the round trip.
“I couldn’t believe they’d do that,” said Poulton, 67, who needed to get to Victoria General Hospital, a 395-kilometre or four-and-a-half hour drive from Woss, located between Port McNeill and Campbell River.
Poulton said if someone was just compensated for the gas, it would have come in at a quarter of the round-trip meter rate.
Island Health said it pays a “flat rate” of $2.72 per kilometre to its contracted drivers. While the $2,148 cost in this case is significant — saving just $100 from the regular meter rate — it’s for an extraordinary service meant for remote-area residents with no other options, not a reimbursement program for friends, family or caregivers.
Poulton said he didn’t have other means of transportation for his doctor’s appointment in Victoria on April 1, so he called Island Health to take advantage of its travel assistance for non-emergency medical care.
At a time when health authority spending is under review, he didn’t imagine that the service included taxis and that he’d be the lone passenger.
In a phone interview on Monday, he said he offered to have someone drive him for less than $500. “If it were my department, I’d say ‘Yippee-ki-yay’ if someone said they would save me [money],” said Poulton. “I just want [the health authority] to spend their money more wisely.”
The first cab drove up Island from Nanaimo, picked Poulton up in Woss, and drove back to Victoria, with the meter reading a total of $1,127.40.
For the return trip, another driver based in Nanaimo picked Poulton up from Victoria General Hospital, and returned him to Woss, with the meter totalling $1,121.30.
Poulton argued the health authority could pay the B.C. government rate — effective April 1, 2024 — of 63 cents per kilometre for employees travelling for work in their personal vehicles.
The same 790-kilometre round trip in that scenario would only cost the health authority about $498.
Island Health argues the fees paid to contracted service providers are not comparable to mileage paid to employees using their own vehicles for travel.
People using the travel assistance program are supported by a 24/7 call centre and booked with one of 10 contracted providers, including taxis, that can provide safe, reliable and professional door-to-door service, even on short notice and regardless of their location.
Given the service is for residents of remote areas, long trips are expected, said the health authority, noting contractors are not paid for the time when there is no client in the vehicle.
“Our contracted taxi companies provide important flexibility to respond to unique and short-notice requests for rides,” said Island Health.
It said contracted taxis are used as a last option for short notice or unique situations.
The health authority said it receives $743,000 annually from the Health Ministry to support non-urgent rural and remote patient transportation for medical appointments, and provided nearly 10,000 rides over the last year.
The province has alternate travel support programs for people who have the means to transport themselves to appointments but may require financial support.
There is currently no backlog of bookings and all eligible patients with pre-booked appointments continue to be scheduled and transported as planned, said Island Health.
Courtenay-Comox BC Conservative MLA Brennan Day, critic for seniors’ and rural health, weighed in on the controversy on Monday, saying his office has been hearing about similar expensive trips for months.
Day said in December, he contacted Health Minister Josie Osborne about the ministry’s “dismantling” of a Wheels for Wellness program on Vancouver Island in favour of splitting the contract among 10 service providers.
For almost three decades, Wheels for Wellness provided free, volunteer-driven, door-to-door service for rural and low-income patients needing medical care, he said.
It used dispatch software to co-ordinate multiple patient pickups and keep costs down, said Day, adding the new “patchwork” of providers can’t meet demand.
“The Minister assured me they had it under control — it’s now clear they do not,” Day said in a statement. “We have a file full of complaints from across the Island saying the same thing: the system is broken, and the Ministry is scrambling to patch it with long-distance taxi rides.”
But Island Health said it conducted extensive consultations with communities in 2023 and heard that having just one contracted transportation provider was not meeting clients’ needs in remote areas of the Island.
Island Health’s last contract with Wheels for Wellness expired in October 2023.
That year, the health authority issued a request for proposals, and says Wheels for Wellness did not submit a proposal in 2023 or 2024, “despite Island Health staff specifically making them aware of the opportunities to submit a bid.”
Island Health said in 2021 and 2022, the service averaged 7,200 rides each year, with some of the transportation not meeting the contract criteria and some being counted twice.
From April 1, 2024, to April 30, 2025, by contrast, Island Health provided more than 9,600 rides, serving more communities and regions than ever before, it said.
Day maintains that under the new arrangement of 10 contracted providers, patients are being told there are no rides available until July, “and we’re seeing $900-per-trip taxi rides replacing a non-profit system that worked.”
But Island Health countered that Wheels for Wellness had a restricted service area, “and towards the end of their contract chose to stop serving the entire west coast region on short notice, creating significant challenges for people in that region.”
The health authority’s 10 contracted service providers now create a network serving the entire region, it said, including the Gulf Islands and “multiple previously unserved” First Nations communities.
The funding allocated through the 2023 and 2024 tendering process was the same as what was provided to Wheels for Wellness in previous years, the health authority said.
B.C. Premier David Eby, in a media availability on Tuesday, said anytime that someone needs to get to a medical appointment it's important that health authorities have a way to get them there.
Eby said he understood Poulton had a friend willing to drive him for the mileage costs and the health authority was unable to accommodate that.
"Sometimes bureaucracies like health authorities have very rigid rules that don't accommodate the nuances for an individual situation," said Eby.
"[It's] certainly an opportunity for us to look at in terms of maybe there's some way to be able to facilitate these kinds of arrangements, but at the end of the day, I'm glad he got to his appointment and I hope the health authority has a look at it."
