A12.- The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, January 26, 2000
Hospital is looking for more hel

ursing shortage hits t ae

By ALEX HAMILTON
“THE HOSPITAL is sick,”
says local resident Sandy
Norman, describing the
treatment her 90-year-old
mother, Alice, received
last week month at Mills
Memorial Hospital.

Norman wants hospital
administrators to forget
about balancing the budget
and start spending more
money on nurses and pa-
tients so local residents
are taken care of properly.

“If the budget goes
over, who cares?” she
said. “We néed more—

nurses and more staff.”
' Norman is angry with
the hospital after her mo-
ther was turned away Jan.

17 due. to a nursing staff
shortage.

She took her mom, who -

lives with her, to Mills
Memorial because the el-
“derly woman had been
vomiting for five days

straight. She was unable to—
keep any food or drink in ~

her stomach.

“She was becoming de-
hydrated,”
who once worked as a
practical nurse in White-
rock. “I knew she needed
an [V right away.”

When she arrived in

emergency at 5 p.m., she
was told all the beds in the
hospital were fuil, but that
she could wait to see if
one would soon be freed.
Her mother was given a
stretcher and an [V but six

hours later, Norman was-
told that a nurse had just-

gone home sick, leaving
the hospital short staffed.

Norman said doctor

Pieter Van Herk, who was
on duty at the time, told

her at 11 p.m. that there--

weren’t enough nurses to
care for-mother. Instead,
she’d have to be sent to
Prince Rupert or Kitimat,
where there were’ beds
available.

said Norman, '

angry,” Norman said. “At

90 years old, do you think

my mother could handle
being packed off some-
where at 11 o'clock at
night?”

“We pay taxes in this
town. We should be al-
lowed to go into our hospi-
tal and if we can’t, we
have big problems here.”

Not, willing to ship her
mom away for care, Nor-
man went home with her
mom, only to return to the

hospital the mext day.

The hospital’s 25 acute
care beds were still full,
but after making a call to
her family physician, her
mom was finally admitted.

Norman ‘doesn’t blame
the nurses or doctors for
the hospital’s problems.

She said the nurses are
tired and overworked.

“If felt sorry for the
girls,” she said. “They’re
just running.”

And as for the doctors,
she said their hands are
tied. They are forced to
turn away patients when
there aren’t enough nurses
to take care of them.

Norman worries about
other elderly people who
don't have family to take
care of them.

The hospital’s director
of nursing Marg Petrick
said the hospital’s budget
allows for 25 acute care

beds. But some days the

hospital has had as many
as 28 patients.
Petrick said critical

emergency patients are
- mever turned away.

However, once the hos-
‘pital is full, patients who
are stabilized will be
transported to. another

hospitals in the northwest ”
-where.beds are available.
Petrick added Mills is ~

currently advertising two
new full time nursing posi-
tions, which should help

aL ed

“That’s 8 ‘when I got with the staff y Shonages
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SANDY NORMAN, who has been looking after her mother, Alice, at home for
30 years, is angry that the hospital wouldn't admit her when she became ill last
week. The hospital's 25 beds were all filled with sick patients.

Minimal population growth

THE. AREA’S population
rose by just 4 per cent in
1999 over the year before,
estimates the provincial
government.

And that places the Ki-
timat-Stikine regional dis-
trict in about the mid-
tange of population
changes across the pro-
vince.

As of July 1999, the
provincial government es-
timates there were 46,622
people in the regional dis-
trict, a tiny increase over
the 46,449 of July 1998.

As it is, the province
estimates the population of
Kitimat has decreased by
2 per cent from last 1998
to 1999 — making for a
drop to 11,672 people from
11,692.

The population of Ter-
race was said to have
grown by .3 per cent, from
13,788 to 13,836 people.

As well, the province

Pee are

a Saad as EF

estimates the population of
the regional district didn’t
change between 1997 and
1998.

That could have been in

_ fesponse to the uncertainty

surrounding Skeena Cellu-
lose’s future at the time.

But while the area po-
pulation remain uwn-
changed, the province
does indicate the city’s
population actually grew
by .5 per cent between
1997 and 1998.

From 1996 to 1997, the
regional district’s popula-
tion grew by 2.2 per cent
and by three per cent with-
in Terrace proper.

The province’s overall
population rose by just .7
per cent in 1999 over 1998
for a total of 4,029,253
people.

That .7 increase is a
drop from the 1 per cent
the year before and the 2
per cent the year before
that.

Fire destroys house

TERRACE RCMP are blaming a wood stove for a run:
away fire that completely destroyed a home 3.7 kilo-
metres east of Chimdemash Jan. 17.

RCMP Constable Jamie Saxton said the home owner
left: inthe morning and by the time he got back at the
end of the day, his*house was gone.

Arson is nol'Suspected’in the fire and Terrace RCMP’
are still investigating the blaze. House fires in the regio-

_ al district surrounding Terrace normally fali under the

jurisdiction of the Thornhill fire department, but because
this house fell outside the department’s fire area, Thorn-
hill fire fighters did not attend the blaze.

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