The East Kootenay Regional Hospital is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year and current and former staff as well as political representatives and members of the public got together last Friday to celebrate the jewel of the Kootenays. "40 years isn't so much about the brick and mortar," said John Kettle, Chair of the Kootenay East Regional Hospital District (KERHD). "It's about the people who make up the hospital here."

Kettle points out, the Cranbrook facility has a great reputation throughout the province. While he was meeting with other hospital district chairs during the annual meeting of the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM), he talked with a representative from Kelowna. This person, Kettle remembers, said his kid had to access the emergency room in Cranbrook and received the best care.

"We have programs now that we've never had, we have continuity of service, we have sustainability," says Dr. Joe Kotlarz, Medical Director for the East Kootenay. When he moved to the Kootenays close to 15 years ago, there was no real emergency department. Today, Kotlarz feels, the facility is a vibrant hospital with fabulous staff.

The biggest change, he points out, is the amount of excellent specialists that were hired in the last few years. Just recently, Kotlarz says, the hospital was able to hire one of the best internists it could get, with a background in cardiology and neurology - and stole him away from Alberta on top of everything else.

"This is not a Cranbrook hospital, this is an East Kootenay facility," Kotlarz emphasizes. The construction of a top-notch regional facility with top-notch physicians and staff, came with a price. Some dramatic decisions were made in 2002, recalls East Kootenay MLA Bill Bennett. Across the Interior Health region, several smaller hospitals were closed to focus resources on the regional facility. Two of these hospitals closed were in Kimberley and Sparwood.

"I don't think we should ever forget the trauma [the residents of these communities] felt in losing their community hospital," Bennett thinks. However, he adds, by seeing the vision beyond, the communities have come together for the good of the people who have fought through that difficult time.

According to Kotlarz who still works in the EKRH emergency department, between 30 and 40 percent come from the outlying areas, rather than Cranbrook itself. The new facility, Kotlarz says, has made it possible that people do not have to travel as much - getting referrals to hospitals in Calgary, Kelowna or even Vancouver. Instead, he states, they can now get large number of treatments or surgeries right here in the Kootenays.

One person that can really evaluate all the changes that have taken place at the hospital in the last 40 years is C.J. Henderson. The retired registered nurse started her career in 1965, even before the medical services moved from the St. Eugene Hospital to the new building. In 1968, she was one of the first in the new emergency department. Together with another nurse, and armed with carpenter aprons and wrenches, the two women were sent in a couple of weeks early to hang blood pressure cuffs and test gas lines.

Although Henderson readily admits there have been many positive changes from the early days, including the addition of new technology and much needed space, she also has some cautionary words. "The more things change, the more they stay the same," she points out. "We're still short of equipment, we're still short of staff." Kotlarz says some of the things needed are an improved Intensive Care Unit as well as an upgraded nephrology program.