Al2 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, November 7, 2001
Re-organization a must, says Harris

Health care hunt frustrates MLA

SKEENA LIBERAL MLA Roger Harris is busy
pounding on doors this week trying to over-
come two pieces of bad news when it comes
to northwestern health care.

In rapid succession, health care officials
here learned that advanced planning for a kid-
ney dialysis unit at Mills Memorial Hospital
and a request to speed up a replacement for its
now-shut down mammography: machine are
both frozen because of the provincial govern-
ment’s core review of all capital spending.

The kidney unit was to have been open next
spring and the mammography machine repla-
cement has topped a list of capilal items wan-
ted by the Terrace and Area Health Council
for some months now.

Sounding somewhat exasperated and frus-
trated, Harris said late last week that one of
the problems is finding the tight people with
the right answers.

“Either they’re not talking to each other or
they’re talking to differen! people,” said Harris
of many conversations he has had.

Harris talked to local health care officials,

regional ones, various health ministry officials

in Victoria and even to the deputy minister —
all in the hunt to determine what’s going on.

“The flow of information is hard to follow,”
said Harris.

“I can tell you all this is a good reason for
the regionalization + the re-organization of
health care. We have to get on with it.”

Harris said that while the kidney dialysis
unit is under review, the health ministry is also
waiting to get a more detailed breakdown of
its costs.

“The ministry has 5 already given its appro-
val in principle,” said Harris.

Reports throughout the north indicate that
the Prince George Northern Interior Regional
Health Board, which would run the kidney unit
here as a satellite service, has set out a budget
of $3 million for set up and first year of opera-
tion.

Yet the health ministry in Victoria has in-
formation, now some months old, containing a
figure of $1.5 million.

Harris acknowledged that people are rightly
upset over the dialysis review.

“Getting a renal service here is at the front

of the page,” he said.

“Diabetes is on the rise,” said Harris in
adding there is more of the disease in the na-
tive community and will be elsewhere as the
population begins to age.

To not have a kidney dialysis service in the
northwest is, Harris continued, “a recipe for
disaster.”

As for a new mammogram unit at Mills
Memorial Hospital, Harris said he’s been told
the health ministry has backed the idea of a
mobile one which can be taken to outlying
communities.

But he also thinks such a plan, because it
would be a regional service, has to be ap-
proved by the heads of community health
councils in the northwest.

“I can assure you [’]l be working to get the
answers,” said Harris.

Given that local groups are raising money
and that the North West Regional Hospital
District is ready to chip in with its standard 40
per cent for new equipment, the MLA felt the
total cost of approximately $180,000 is not an
exceptionally large amount of money.

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Plug
pulled

And even if speedy ap-
proval was given to re:
place the machine, it
would take weeks before -
the new one arrived,

“By the time you pre-
pare the specifications and
the technical details and
send them around and
award the contract to-a
company, it could take
four, six, perhaps eight
weeks to deliver,” said
Kuntz.

“We'll be dawn for sev-
eral months, no question.”

A preliminary costing
for a replacement of
$225,000 has now been re-
duced to approximately
$180,000.

‘The Dr. R.E.M. Lee
Hospital Foundation is at
the front of local efforts to
help meet that cost as is ;
the North West Regional
Hospital District, a regio-
nal taxing authority for
health care. ;

“We've just written a
letter to the Minister of
Health emphasizing the
urgency of replacing the
equipment now,” said hos-°
pital district chair Rich
McDaniel.

The district normally
contributes 40 per cent of
major health care capital
spending.

The plan, said Kuntz, is
to purchase a unit which
while based at Mills, is
also portable enough to be
taken to outlying commu-
nities.

That would be prefer
able, added Linda Hyde,
Kuntz’s counterpart at the
Snow Valley Community
Health Council which runs
the Stewart General Hos-
pital.

Women from that com-
munity now have to come.
down to Terrace for mam-
mograms.

“We do pay for those
[transportation] costs, but
some women keep putting
it off,” said Hyde of the
trip.

She noted that . the
northwest is the only re-
gion in the province not to
have a mobile mammo-
gram service for outlying
areas, :

The closest mobile ma-_
chine is in Prince George,
but it comes out only 38.
far as Houston,

In the meantime, Kiti-
mat General Hospital. is ©
ready to take women from
the area who need ‘mam-.
mograms.

Hospital administratar
Cholly Boland said last.
week that depending upon: . .
demand, a wait list may. -
have to be set up,

“We are ready 'to add to
our resources,” said Bo-

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service to meet demand, |
He also discounted ru-
mours making the rounds
in Terrace that. Kitimat ~~
had mammography equip- - | oo
ment, but nobody to run it.
“We had a long time
employee from radiology
retire a couple of weeks .
ago, but that did not. affect -
our service,” said Boland. —
He sald that position
has been filled. _

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