A very unhealthy trend
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Updated: October 28, 2009 9:47 AM
I am sure there are those who dismiss fears that Kitimat General Hospital is going to be turned into a band-aid station as pure paranoia.
But listen to Dr. Ignatius van der Merwe and it is not hard to see why people here are worried.
At the most recent Kitimat Health Advocacy Group meeting the orthopedic surgeon ran through a list of staff and service cuts the facility has seen recently and their potential impact.
On the loss of microbiology testing at KGH (Sentinel, October 14), van der Merwe said lab personnel were concerned staffing was already “at critical levels”, adding the lab manager had been on call for six weekends in a row.
With on call likely to increase, he warned, “Retention becomes an issue, quality of life becomes an issue.”
Noting a nurses aide position in the Emergency Room was now gone, he said that left one nurse to run the ER - which local doctors has told the Northern Health Authority was “an unsafe practice”.
Having lost the core of people providing the treatment, van der Merwe said as a result “chemo may have to be transferred to Terrace...for a period of time.”
Turning to the need for continuous medical education for nurses, he said the plan was to shut down the operating rooms for five days in March to allow the OR nurses to attend a course in Vancouver.
However, the NHA had said financial constraints mean all travel and accommodation expenses for training will no longer be covered.
He therefore suggested going out into the community for donations to cover those costs.
Van der Merwe said the NHA had even discontinued offering meals to staff - for which the staff paid - a service that was both widely used and appreciated.
On the overall picture, he said, “From the previous situation in town where we had no black outs or very, very seldomly, we are now basically running at a skeletal staffing level - and not just in one department.”
On Friday, November 6 the NHA is holding a public meeting in the Tamitik meeting room.
It’s an opportunity to hold their feet to the fire on the future of health care in this community, an opportunity not to be missed.
And remember, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they haven’t got it in for you.
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