Billions for Olympics, but cuts for health care
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Updated: October 22, 2009 11:44 AM
Editor, The Record:
Now $390,000 is what Mission Memorial Hospital is expected to sacrifice to the alter of the Fraser Health Authority’s deficit.
At a meeting on Oct. 16 staff were informed that MMH has three options, one of which will help us succeed in our contribution to cutting the deficit. The high level executives of the FHA will decide which option to take by the end of October.
Option 1: the Emergency Room will be open 15 hours out of 24.
Option 2: the ER will remain unchanged, but $390,000 will have to be cut from core services within the hospital. What gets cut when you only have 20 beds left, 10 of those designated for people waiting for residential care beds, 75 residential care beds, 1 ambulatory care unit, a 10-bed hospice, one operating room that operates two days a week?
All of these options will impact not just support services like the lab, imaging and maintenance, but nursing as well.
Option 3 is not being considered. It is changing the ER into an urgent care centre.
How many billions of dollars is our government spending to support the Winter Olympics?
Security is said to cost $1 billion. Vanoc says they have to pay their staff $30 million in bonuses to “keep the team together.” All Mission requires is $390,000 to keep its team together – cheap by any account.
Once again the staff of MMH are looking at each other hoping that their jobs aren’t the ones on the line, but knowing down the road some familiar faces will be missing. We have done this before in 2001 and 2003.
Once again the staff of MMH will lose a piece of their beloved hospital to those who think health care should be a business, and caring is not in the equation. It makes the FHA motto “Best in care. Best in Health Care” laughable.
Once again staff lose, but the biggest losers will be the citizens and community of Mission.
Linda Pipe,
BCNU FraserValley
region chairperson
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