Debates of the
Legislative Assembly (Hansard)
Estimates: Ministry
of Health
Committee C
Wednesday, May 16,
2012 Afternoon Sitting
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Hon. M. de Jong: The remaining challenge there, in my view, is to
properly deploy those nurse practitioners to address the gaps that still exist
in some rural communities where we have not enjoyed success in attracting
physicians.
So in one single area —
but I would suggest to the member and the committee an area that most people
would use as an important benchmark for the attention that is paid to rural
health care — I would suggest that the effort speaks for itself, the commitment
speaks for itself, and ultimately, the results speaks for themselves.
H. Lali: The results do
speak for themselves. What we've seen is a wholesale abandonment of health care
in rural British Columbia by this government for the last 11 years that they've
been in office. I know the Liberals like to blame doctors, and say: "It's
not an issue of finances. It's an issue of doctors not wanting to come to small
towns." They like to blame the NDP. There is not a shortage of doctors in
B.C. I mean, money has not been allocated to pay doctors for the ER services at
the expense of rural communities like Princeton. Until a year and a half ago,
Princeton had at least five locums to call upon for the operation of our ER.
Now we have none. At that time, Interior Health Authority made a significant
cut to their ER pay.
Since that time we have
had trouble getting doctors to work in our ER in Princeton. The
situation repeats itself
in those communities in my riding that I mentioned to the minister earlier. I
would also like to submit that in 2000 there were 22 hospital beds in
Princeton. There are six beds there now. In the middle of the night the IHA
came and took 14 away. Also, in 2000 we had an operating room in Princeton, a
24/7 emergency room, a nurse to assess your emergency, an intake nurse for
registration, a maternity ward, four doctors
covering ER, full-time
pharmacy, full-time health technicians — Xray, blood work, etc.
Today in 2012, as I
mentioned, there are only six beds; no OR, operating room, in Princeton;
unreliable hours; frequent closures instead of a 24/7 emergency room; a pay
phone outside the ER, a television monitor to a nurse in Kamloops; no maternity
ward; 1.5 doctors; no pharmacy. And as far as full-time health technicians,
it's now part-time and dwindling rapidly since the Liberals have taken office.
Initially this government
closed the ER in Princeton on Christmas Eve without any consultation or notice.
There was no notice available. We had an inappropriate level of nursing staff.
Then in February the Interior Health sent out a notice about temporary service
changes at the Princeton General and said that due to limited physician
availability, there will be times when only the most urgent cases will be seen
by the physician on call. They said they were going to reduce the ER operating
hours and close the ER on 22 days from midnight to eight AM in February. That
was about a week later increased to 25 days that it was closed.
It was suggested that —
and I have the IHA communiqué with me: "Patients with less urgent matters
will be assessed by our trained nurses, but depending on their condition,
may be transferred to a
nearby hospital for care or offered appropriate options. If this is the case,
it's important to come prepared," it says here. This is the Liberal's IHA
communiqué. It says: "If this is the case, it's important to come
prepared. Bring your wallet, shoes, clothes, and make arrangements for the
return home" when they ship you off to another hospital. I mean, when
people are having an emergency, if they're having a heart attack or folks are
involved in a critical accident or they're working in the sawmill. Weyerhaeuser
has a sawmill in Princeton. If people are capable of either driving themselves
to the hospital in case of an emergency, or if they're totally incapable of
doing that and people who are tending to them are going to drive their loved
ones or their co-workers to the hospital, the last thing they're thinking is
"let's grab the person's wallet, their shoes, their clothes, and make
arrangements for their return home."
This is the level to which
the B.C. Liberals have reduced public health care in rural communities all
throughout the province through their misguided centralization of services into
regional hospitals. Then in April 2012 another communiqué from the IHA. Now it
says that "we have developed an interim plan to be put into place May 1,
which we believe is the best option for Princeton area residents." So as
of May 1, 2012, already now, "the emergency department will be closed
between midnight and eight AM four nights a week, Mondays to Thursdays for at
least a year or more." It says right here that "it may need to be in
place for approximately one year while longer-terms solutions are sought."
…to be continued
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