Debates of the
Legislative Assembly (Hansard)
Estimates: Ministry
of Health
Committee C
Wednesday, May 16,
2012 Afternoon Sitting
---------------------
H. Lali: Again, the
Liberals intend to actually install — it's already been installed — a telephone
at the hospital entrance so anyone arriving at the hospital will have the
ability to call 911. That's the situation that's there right now.
I'd like to ask the
minister: is it true that the B.C. Liberals are now planning
to close the Princeton ER
five nights a week, instead of the four nights in the communiqué, at least for
a year or more?
Hon. M. de Jong: Let's
assess the situation in and around Princeton General Hospital — a hospital that
services, I think, about roughly 5,000 people, not all of them live in Princeton,
of course. Although I might point out, far more live in Princeton today than was
the case 12 years ago thanks to some additional economic activity that is
taking place, which of course is good news for the community.
Here is the situation that
the health authority is confronted by. It is delightfully entertaining, as
always, to hear the honourable member speak about these matters and decisions as
if they were the product of some cold, calculated political level of
deliberation. What's disappointing is that he knows that's not true. He knows
that's not true, and yet he persists in what I can only surmise to be crass
political reasons to suggest
that.
The Ministry of Health,
let alone the Minister of Health, let alone the cabinet have made no such
decisions, and it is incorrect for the member to suggest otherwise. What the Interior
Health Authority has done is tried as best it can, in an entirely non-partisan
way, to address some challenges that exist. Most of those challenges relate to physician
recruitment issues. There are three practicing physicians in Princeton. Now,
the member has taken some time highlighting to the committee how knowledgeable he
is about the circumstances in Princeton, and how that health care community is
being, apparently, bled dry of resources.
He didn't, by the way,
disclose to the committee what those three physicians made in 2010-2011 on a
fee for- service basis. Because presumably, if he is correct and the health
care services in Princeton
are being bled dry, that would reveal itself in a lack of funding for either
that facility or the people that work there. I can disclose this information to
the committee because
there's nothing private about it. It's set out in the public accounts.
The three physicians working
in Princeton in 2010- 2011 earned $398,400, $476,420
and $430,800. So to
suggest, somehow, that there is an issue around the funding of the
primary caregiver in the
guise of the doctor is simply inaccurate and untrue. In fact, the challenge has
been to try and attract additional physicians to Princeton, because only two of
the three I've mentioned are prepared to provide ER coverage. In this forum, I
would suggest this.
It is fair, first of all,
for the member to offer criticism of where he believes the government has come up
short in its efforts to address the needs of his constituents and, in this case,
the people of Princeton. But it sounds like the member has a magical solution
that he is simply awaiting the opportunity to implement. Maybe he does. Maybe
in identifying the failure that he has characterized — the failure which,
presumably, reveals itself in the inability to attract an additional ER physician
to Princeton — he has an answer for that, and it is, he would submit, our failure
for not having acted on it.
He has a choice. He has a
choice today. He can share that solution with us, with me, and say: "But
for the government's unwillingness to do this, we would have solved this problem."
I'm interested to hear that. Apparently the member has a solution to the physician
recruitment challenge that has plagued Princeton. I'm certainly anxious to hear
it. I suspect 5,300 residents in and around Princeton are anxious to hear it.
So let's have it.
I may respond by
explaining why I think that solution is of limited utility. I may dispute the
solution. But the member's submission can only lead to the conclusion that he
has the
solution.
The solution, apparently, does
not involve the $200,000 in additional funding that was made available to
retain additional ER coverage, the $200,000 that Princeton has decided to make available
for additional locum coverage, electronic scheduling and, by the way, the
rental of an apartment for $44,000 so that if a locum comes to Princeton,
they've got a place to stay. None of that, admittedly, has been enough to solve
the challenge. But if the member wishes to be taken seriously in these
deliberations…. Maybe he does; maybe he doesn't. If his purpose is to simply
come in and cast some allegations and make some assertions, that's fine. But if
he wants to be taken seriously, and he has a proposal for what would be required
to address a physician supply problem in Princeton that has admittedly led to
some limited closures….
By the way, I don't know
where he is getting this material about expanded night time closings of the ER.
If he wants me to take that assertion seriously, he should tell me
where he got that material
from, because I am aware of no such plan. Let's have a productive conversation about
where he feels some of the solutions lie. If it's just going to be an exercise
in government bad or good, then we can have that conversation too.
…to be continued
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