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VOL.24 NO. 39 fe

Health body could

THE NEW super health authorities are
going lo have to absorb any deficits
accumulated by taking over from
smaller, community-based ones, says
health services minister Colin Hansen.

“Part of the insiructions to the new
CEOs are that they should do every-
thing in their powers to deliver bal-
anced budgets this year,” said Hansen.

It also means the new Northern
Health Authority (NHA) may not start
its first official fiscal year next April 1
with a clean balance sheet.

As well, the new authority, and the
other four created by taking over com-
munity health councils and regional
health boards across the province, will
be working with frozen budgets for the
next couple of years.

How much the deficit could be, if

there is to be one, for the new North-
ern Health Authority (NHA) isn’t yet
known. Some of the old health coun-

.cils did have surpluses but others were

running in the red.

The old Terrace and Area Health
Council was estimating a deficit that
could have approached $500,000.

It’s also difficult to judge whether
the NHA can cut significantly cut ex-
penses in the three months left in the
fiscal year which ends March 31.

The one thing working against the
old community health councils was
the impact of substantial wage con-
tracts brought in this year for nurses
and medical professionals.

Those old authorities had yet to re-
ceive all of the money to pay for those
contracts before they were eliminated

in favour of the new super boards.

But Hansen said the $271 million
now listed as the NHA’s budget this
year does contain all of the money
needed this year for those new con-
tracts.

That amount is meant to be ail the
authority needs to provide health care,
he said.

“Instead of authorities coming cap
in hand for something they need, and
for the government to hold back on
money because they knew they’d be
approached, we’re going to say here’s
the whole envelope to do what you
want, but manage it more efficiently,”
said Hansen.

“They'll be responsible for health
outcomes.”

The minister expects this will end

what has been the practice of !ocal
health authorities coming up with their
own figures of what they need, the
government coming up with different
ones and then having a constant back
and forth to determine what actually
will be provided.

“Phe amount of administrative time
was horrendous,” said Hansen.

One example was the retroactive
nurses’ pay going back to April 1 of
last year

It was so complex, the.old local
health authorities and the province had
trouble figuring out what was correct,
Hansen said,

“Victoria should butt out. We're
giving the authorities the means to do
all of this by themselves.”

The minister did say the authorities

Wednesday, January 2/2002 —

face deficit

might be hampered by the lack of —

flexibility in health care labour con-
tracts and by the cost of the contracts.

“Health care support workers, for
example, are the highest paid in the
country — as much as 20 per cent high-
er than the next highest paying
province,” said Hansen.

“So what you had over the past ten
years was more and more money going
into very, very rich collective
agreements.”

That’s caused the province to con-
sider changing those contracts to give
the new authorities more flexibility: in
using their workers.

“We're looking at everything. It’s
one of whole range -of options,” said
Hansen.

KNITTING IS not only therapeutic for these people, but their
work goes toward a goad cause — newborns at Mills Memorial

Hospital. Clara Turner, Dolly Raberts, Marion Clift and Eileen
English are among those providing caps, booties and outfits.

Local babes benefit from knitting

THEY DON’T have a name. They never
meet as a group. Nobody is quite sure how
many of them are. One even lives in New
Westminster.

But they have a common bond — knitting
and babies.

And the combination works to provide
caps, hooties and small outfits for newborns
at Mills Memorial Hospital.

If nobody’s quite sure how many knitters
there are, the same goes for how the whole
thing started.

“Somebody jusi phoned and asked .the
Happy Gang Centre if they had seniors who
could knit toques,” recalls Dolly. Roberts,
one of the knitters.

She and several other knitters gathered .
recently at Mills Memorial Hospital to talk -

about what they do.

Roberts has been knitting for newboms for
four or five years.

Marion Clift has been doing it for about a
year. She often takes bus trips and finds that
knitting helps pass the time.

7 Another knitter,
Ejleen English,
estimates she
knits about one
a half toques a
day.
All of the knit-
ters describe the
craft as thera-
peutic in addi-
tion to the value
it provides for
newborns.
They get their.
wool through a
variety of means
with the Happy
Gang Centre pencrally acting as a receiving
depot. -

“People also drop off leftover wool at the
thrift shop,” says Roberts.

The New Westminster connection to knit-
ting is a person who has never lived here.

Jean Coburn got into knitting for new-

. Jean Coburn

borns, particularly premature babies, when
the granddaughter of a friend was born: pre-
maturely.

“She was one pound, six ounces and
nothing would fit,” remembers Coburn.

She found a book of patterns for prema-
ture babies and offered her knitting services.

The experience went so well Coburn tried
to find hospitals around the lower mainland
who also wanted clothes for premature ba-
bies.

None replied sa Coburn began sending
clothes -to Terrace. because her daughter,
Sharon Prinz, is a nurse.at Mills.

“Every time she comes down, she takes

back a bundle,” said ‘Coburn who has been |

knitting for Mills babies for four years:

Although Coburn has visited the hospital,
_ She has never met one of the babies. she has

helped clothe.

But she did receive a picture . ofa baby .

wearing some of her handiwork. —
“It’s good to send items there where they
are needed,” said Coburn.

Council ponders stand firm budget
which won’t mean a rise in taxes

LOCAL HOMEOWNERS are likely to get
through 2002 without paying any more on their
city property taxes.

City council has completed its draft budget.

Councillor Val George said council may not
hit its objective of delivering tax decreases,
but said the budget is on track to hold the line
and stave off any increases for most taxpayers.

The budget is expected to.go lo a ‘public -

input session around the third week of January.
The next step of the budget equation is to
plug in property assessment data from B.C. As-

sessment that becomes available’ at the: bewin :

ning of January. .

iF

“The one big uncertain factor is Skeena
Cellulose,” George said.
Northwest towns are off the hook from what

. had been a condition to raise $20 million for a

community investment in the forest company —
a now-dropped condition of Mercer Interna-

- tional,

“That's a dead issue with us,” Gearge said.
But although community buy-in is off the
table, what will happen with SCI property

“taxes is still very much up in the air.

George said SCI pays abaut $800,000 a

“year in ptoperty taxes here; or about 10 per ae
"cent of the city’s tax revenue.

“We're planning on the basis that some of
those taxes are going to be paid,” he said.

“We assume that if a buyer comes in and _.

starts to operate the mill again then the current
taxes are due and we would expect to collect
them.”

The budget assumes policing costs remain

the same and natural gas costs ease ‘somewhat,

George said the budget should also boost

"the city’s surplus from this past year’s level of

$500,000 to a safer amount of around
$700,000. o

“it was ‘down to the absolute minlniin: we,
could responsibly operate with,” he said.

New health —
boss named

Terrace’s Dieter Kuntz.
moves to Prince George

THE NEW way of delivering health care has taken on
more shape with the appointment. of Paul Brown as the
person in.charge-of-all health services: in the northwest.

‘Formerly the head of the Northwest Community
Health Services Society (the old Skeena Health Unit),
Brown is now one of three chief operating officers of the
new Northem Health Authority (NHA).

He’s from Ontario and is a relatively recent arrival in
the northwest. Hrown is now responsible for-all facets of
hospital, extended care and community care from the
Queen Charlottes to Houston.

It makes him one of the most powerful civil servants

in the northwest. Brown and the other chief operating of: .

ficers for the central north and the northeast, will report
to Peter Warwick, the NHA’s chief executive officer.

Warwick says Brown will have the authority to move
resources around the region to where they make the most
sense to do the job that is required.

“He'll have complete authority to solve problems on
the spot,” said Warwick who expects that ethic to trans-
late down to front-line health care workers.

“There are no more barriers, no inter-jurisdictional
barriers. Instead of 15 CEOs (in the northwest), there is
only one now,” said Warwick.

He expects decision-making to be faster, more effi-
cient and all directed at patient care.

“We will have people in charge’of corporate services.

— payroll, personnel - so our chief operating officers will
be able to concentrate on patient services,” said War-

_ Wick. “If we have a problem, itl] be up to us.”

Warwick’s new chain of
command also does away with
the traditional concept of hav-
ing administrators responsible
for just one hospital.

Cholly Boland, who was the
CEO of the Kitimat Community.
Health Council and administra-
tor of the Kitimat hospital, is
now in charge of that facility,
Mills Memorial Hospital here
and health care facilities. in
Stevvart and Dease Lake.

Dieter Kuntz, formerly the
CEO of the Terrace and Area
Health Council and administrator of Mills, is moving to
Prince George to begin working on ways of saving
money by mass purchase of supplies and services.

“That. could be anything from food to energy,” said
Warwick. “We'll be looking 4 structure to get us econo-
mies of scale.”

“Our budget for this is something like $70-million of
our total $271 million budget and he [Kuntz] will. be
looking for those economies.”

That’s considered crucial to the NHA because it
wants td put every dollar it saves in purchasing 4 into par
tient care. ene

Dieter Kuntz

e EEESE ‘
Dieter Kuntz says he’s looking forward to his-n new 1 job
of saving money in buying supplies and services for the
NHA. “We want to do it better for less money,” said
Kuntz,

But he’s sorry to leave: Terrace, saying he enjoyed his

work since coming here in the spring of 2000.: ;
Kuntz arrived at a time when the health council. Was
_ Tuning, large deficits and had been under the admin-

‘istration of a government appointee brought in to curb,

deficits.”

- Former health council chair Bob Kelly said he. appre-
‘elited Kuntz's style and leadership... -

During his short tenure, Kuntz oversaw badly needed
" Fenovations: to the hospital’s regional psychiatric ward

é, and helped steer the approval for a supportive: housing
~ 8 project on the bench beside Terraceview: ‘Ladge. re