Health care and public safety are two of the top issues on the minds of British Columbians, but new statistics this week paint differing views of whether the government is making progress in dealing with public concerns.

Almost 142,000 people walked out of B.C. emergency rooms last year without being seen by a doctor or nurse, as patients wrestle with multi-hour wait times, crowded hospitals and an overwhelmed health-care system.

The numbers are part of internal health ministry data the Opposition BC Conservatives obtained under freedom of information, which show an 86 per cent increase over the last six years in people leaving ERs without being seen.

“These aren’t just numbers, they’re lives,” Opposition Conservative critic Brennan Day said.

“That’s 141,961 people who turned to the system in a moment of crisis and were turned away by a government that simply isn’t listening.”

The worst rise was in Island Health, where the number of people leaving ERs without treatment jumped 160 per cent over six years. It was 87 per cent in Fraser Health and 56 per cent in Vancouver Coastal Health over the same period. The wait times at Surrey Memorial Hospital’s ER at 9:45 p.m. Thursday night was almost 10 hours. At that rate, a person entering the ER wouldn’t be seen until almost 8 a.m. Wait times were almost six hours at Vancouver General Hospital ER, and more than eight and a half........

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