Budget blues | ‘Healing the child Ring masters It’s getting tougher for the school ao district to decide how to spend its ; budget\NEWS A8° A local: play written by teenagers focuses on the issue of sexual abuse\COMMUNITY B1 ‘Local boxers cleaned up at the”: Silver Gloves tournament held in 7 Vernon\SPORTS C1 aren WEDNESDAY MARCH 29, 1995 JUST TWG months after Orenda Forest Products announced plans to sell to an American-owned syndicate, another northwest forest company is to change hands, This time it’s Buffalo Head Forest Products; which has a. licence to cut 342,000 cubic metres of wood north of Meziadin on Hwy37, Repap, which operates as Skeena Cellulose in the north- Death lawsuit settled AN OUT-OF-COURT settlement has been reached in the lawsuit against former ‘Terrace ob- stetician Dr. Gordon Boyd in connection with the post-abortion death of Myrna George here four years ago. The 19-year-old woman died of complications afler her uterus was perforated during the Sept, 11, 1991 abortion carried out by | Boyd at Mills Memorial Haspital. She lost large volumes of blood and her condition deteriorated over three days. Flown to Van- couver, George died at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, The malpractice suit alleged Boyd and anesthetist Dr. Robin Chorn failed to act quickly enough in treating George. The lawsuit was filed against both doctors on behalf of Myrna George’s children — six-year-old Alyssa George and four-year-old Tristan Jackson and her mother Maureen George, now the children’s guardian, Albert Roos, lawyer for the family, . said Boyd admitted liability in agreeing to the settle-, ment, Roos said he could not disclose the amount or terms of the settle- ment. Dz, Chor was dropped from the lawsuit, he added. The settlement must still be ap- proved by a public trustee to ensure it is in the interests of George’s children. Myrma’s mother Maureen said the settlement is acceptable. “Tm happy with it for the kids anyway,’’ she said last week. **No amount of maney is going to bring ber back, They can keep all that moncy if they could bring her home to me and the kids,’” She said she's glad she didn’t have to testify at trial and re-live ihe entire experience, EMPLOYEES PAID west, already has a 49 per cent stake in Buffalo Head. It’s to assume complete majority owner- ship by purchasing an additional 25 per cent from Alberta busi- nessman Ross Adam. “It really doesn’t change any- thing. We had the senior. pasition ~ all along and we still havea partn- er,” said Skeena Cellulose official Pat Ogawa on Monday. _ Ogawa said Adam approached Skeena Cellulose to see if it was interested in buying more of Buffalo Head, The purchase further tightens - Skeena Cellulose’s forest hold- ings in the northwest. Although it has a pulp mill in Prince Rupert . and sawmills in Terrace, Carnaby near Hazelton and in Smithers, the company doesn’t have secure supplies to feed them, Fibre supply is becoming more crucial in B.C. with compa- nies competing for an increasing- g Learning culture through art A FIRST NATIONS CIRCLE formed recently at Skeena Junior Secondary, Its 37 teenage members hope to promote cross-cultural understanding through projects such as these button blankets, Keane Stewart-Talt of the Frog and Raven clan, adopted Shawny Mackay, left, so she could do a Raven button blanket. Andrea Sam did a Killer Whale blanket. The group plans to sew thelr blankets together to form a large blanket to put on display. ly limited amount. Ogawa said Skeena Cellulose’s majority position in Buffalo Head will increase its comforl level when it comes to wood supply. But he noted that Skeena. Cellulose already has contracts with Buffalo Head to ‘purchase fibre, particularly pulpwood. _ “We had options of getting all of its pulp logs and we still do. That situation hasn’t changed,” Hotel strikers back to work By JEFF NAGEL PICKET LINES around the Terrace Inn came down last Friday after employees there were piid in cash. But union leaders are still try- ing to get the hotel to forward $12,500 worth of deducted contri-. butions for union dues, pensions and benefits, And medical coverage for the nearly 50 Inn employees will be cut off again this Friday if that money isn’t paid, says Wilma Redpath, business agent for Jocal 40 of the Hotel, . Restaurant Culinary Employees and Bartenders Union. Some employees. medical bills in February: becuse their coverage ~ was - _ temporarily cut off by the~ company that: administers their plan. Coverage was restored after a payment was made. Redpath said last week’s two- day strike came after employees’ paycheques bounced again, and was. strictly the decision of the ‘members. “The members are 100 per cent in the right here and that's not - just coming from_a union point of view,” Redpath snid, - Union dues haven't ” been remitted: for December, January and February, Redpath said, and health and pension benefits pay- “ments have been deducted but not _ Temitted for. January and February. received’. © up to date,” Terrace Inn owner and“ ‘manager Arua Sidhu promised Saturday. Ho PS “They're all going to be paid : Sidhu said he had a productive meeling with employees Friday night and will be able to keep the restaurant and kitchen open. He had said earlier he would close the restaurant effective April 2 — Jaying off more than a dozen employees — because it was los- ing around $6,000 a month, “They're. really helping -me,, and I’m trying to help ther,” Sidhu said. ‘At lenst 13 jobs were ' on the line, And we worked it out ~ Sidhu’s accounts has been depos- cited with the court so far. toa mutual understanding.” He said he plans to supervise ‘the restaurant directly and provide _ more training for staff there.” es Sidhu credited union shop ste- ~ and: Norm’ Lavallee with “coming Up with, crealive “ideis to. fee. resolve the dispute. Meanwhile, J & F Distributors have. named Sidhu, the Terrace Inn, ond his numbered company in a lawsuit for $15,416.53 worth of groceries that J & F claims it supplied but wasn’t paid for. The :action‘was started March 7. Court documents show Sidhu has agreed to muke some pay- -Mments to the court, which will be held in trust pending a decision. Records show $3,352.45 from Sidhu says people who don't ‘have confiderice i in him will soon ; be | proven wrong. “ward: Lorne ‘Burkett, and: local... trade union: léaders Fred ‘Glover. : : Travelodge hotel diréctory, “He -returned .from ‘Vancouver last. week .with coples of the 1995 Cont d Page A2 . | 78¢ PLUS 5¢ ast - VOL..7.NO.50 2epap ups stake in timber fir Ogawa continued. The Buffalo Head sale could figure in the altention being drawn to the pending Orenda deal, Orenda’s planned new owner, OFP Acquisition Corp., wants ta ship wood to Gold. River on Vancouver Island to re-open a : closed newsprint mill. That’s being criticized by. - Skeena Cellulose which has a contract to buy up to 200,000 — cubic metres a year of pulp wood from Orenda, | It says its Prince Rupert pulp mill is threatened if the. wood .is allowed to move south. But Orenda, citing’ ‘Skeena Cellulose’s then 49 per cent stake in Butfalo Head, said it could get more pulp fibre by. laking more from Buffalo Head. : > Orenda also cited shipping fig- ures to indicate that Buffalo Head wood was being sold to other liness jams up hospital — A HARD HITTING respiratory illness going through the area has resulted in a packed house at Mills Memorial Hospital, At times the hospital, the scene of bed closures in recent years to meet budget cutbacks, bas had patients temporarily located in corridors while awaiting rooms. “There's ‘soittething “out'in’ the community right now that’s af- fecting the elderly and the pediatric,’ said Michael Leisinger, chief operating officer for the society that runs the hospi- tal, “We're now a 52-bed hospital and we’ve been jammed the past. couple of weeks,” he said. ‘This kind of thing is not too unusual for a March. Last year we didn’t have that kind of bump but this year it’s retumed with a vengeance and it’s hitting bard.”’ **If there is admitting to the cor ridor, it’s taking place while a place js being sought.. Even ‘if a bed opens, it takes time to change the linen, clean the room,’' Leisinger said. He said the strain of dealing with a 100 per cent occupancy rate can be seen on the faces of hospital employees, ‘What I can say js they’re doing the best they can under the siluation,’” Leisinger continued. ‘Hopefully, we're through the worst of it.”’ An added complication is the number of patients now at the hospital awaiting transfers to long term care institutions, other hos- pilals or back home ‘where they can be treated by visiting nuises. That number fluctuates but is now higher than normal, said Leisinger. “The system is now kind of backed up. There’s no other place for these people ta go, When ~ other facilities say ‘no’, we really can’t say ‘no,”’ he said. ; Typically, Leisinger says. ‘the hospital likes to run at.an 80 per cent occupancy rate. © =.) That then gives the hospital _ Hlexibility to ensure patients are in the right wards, | “Beyond that things start to jam up. Sure, we might have a bed but if it’s a male patient, the only bed we might have is in a fe- male room. Then the shoflling starts,”’ said Leisinger.” ~.. “We can be faced with ‘having adult patients in pediatrics, surgi- cal patients in maternity. It’s to the credit of the staff here that things are going as well as they are,’” Leisinger credited the opening of the Sleeping ‘Beauty ‘Lodge _ hostel late last year in helping the hospital cope as much as it: can with overcrowding. That facility, run by the’ local Elks, is in the renovated former nursing quarters on the hospital grounds. It’s meant to house people: ‘fion out of town who can’t arrive on the day needed by the hospital or who can’t go home immediately after their medical needs have. been met. - Before, those patients might be kept at the hospital but now they can stay at the hostel for a:mini- mal fee. And, if they need cate, _ the hospital is close at hand. **Without Sleeping — Beauty Lodge, we'd be in real trouble,”” said Leisinger. kk kkk The hospital began the 1990s — with 89° beds but successive budget freezes have resulted i in a decrease to52beds, And as the provincial govern: ment releases its spending plan for the next year, Leisinger says . the hospital is readying for anoth- er year of no budget increases. TERRACE INN employee stretches a rubber paycheque sent to her as a joke by a friend after a number of paycheques had bounced. Employees there walked off. the Job last Wednesday when the cheques bounced: . again. They went back ‘to work alter r they were » Paid. ings cash Thursday night.