A matter of dollars versus deaths
Email
Print
Letter to Editor
Share
Updated: August 13, 2009 4:09 PM
An open letter to finance minister Kevin Falcon:
It was with trepidation and some amusement that I read your defence of the government’s position with regard to the predatory dismemberment of the Mission Hospital.
First, my trepidation is based on actual deaths in our community, attributable either partially and/or completely, to the closure of the intensive care unit in Mission Hospital and the consequent loss of medical specialists, like Dr. Bailey, etc.
Will this second attack on the hospital cause more deaths? What if the recent Deroche train and truck collision had involved numerous injured train passengers in need of immediate emergency care?
With the arrival of the West Coast Express in our city and other growth indicators, we cannot be deprived of adequate, immediate, expert, medical care.
We need both an ICU and an expanded emergency ward.
Mr. Falcon bases his argument entirely on the premise that the community is “20 minutes” from other hospitals.
If minutes between emergency wards were the criteria for placing hospitals we would have to close many of the Vancouver hospitals and retain only Vancouver General.
Of course, this is ludicrous. Medical services should be assigned according to population factors, tax base, urban spread and geographical accessibility.
We have a large tax base. Our urban spread includes some geographically mountainous areas themselves located farther than 20 minutes from even our existing hospital, let alone Ridge Meadows or Abbotsford.
This question is serious.
It is life-threatening.
It is a question of dollars or deaths.
Naida Schultz
v2
