LETTERS

Terrace Standard, Wednesday, May 13, 1992 — Page A9

TO THE TERRACE STANDARD

Dear Sir:
Tam writing this letter on be-

half of the board of trustees,

the administration and the
medical staff of the Mills
Memorial Hospital, The recent

government budget is going to

seriously impair the delivery of
health care to the residents of
the Northwest. The goverm-
ment will not listen to us.

The only recourse. is intense
an persistent political pressure.
If the residents of the Pacific
Northwest wish to continue to
have state of the art medical
eare locally available then the
time to act is now!

The government’s recent
hospital budget in effect treats
us as second class citizens.Let
me explain.

In this government’s recent
budget, finance minister Glen
Clark allocated a 7.4 per cent
increase to the Ministry of
Health. Elizabeth Cull received
5.5 percent.

The only hospitals in B.C.
who got an increase in their
budgets were hospitals in the
Vancouver area, the Fraser
Valley and the Okanagan.
Some increases were in the
range of 6-8 percent. All north-
em hospitals, including Mills
Memorial Hospital, got 0 per-
cent,

The BC.N.U. and H.ELU.
contracts that were recently ne-
gotiated contain. salary in-
creases. These. must be ab-
sorbed by the hospital with no
increased funding.

The government fails to
realize what a major ex-
pense and inconvenience
if is to have to go to Van-
couver for lests, surgery.

The government expects the
Mills Memorial Hospital to
provide the same services and
high standard of health care
with less funds. This is absurd.

Because of this budget the
| Mills “Memorial Hospitaliils yas;
“, faced with a‘ projected deficit *:

of over $700,000. As you may
recall the hospital was faced
with a deficit last year of ap-
proximately $200,000. The
government appointed Mr.
Malcolm Waiker to review the
situation.

He found that the Mills
Memorial Hospital was the
second busiest hospital for its
size in Canada, 40% of our
patient load comes from the
region (outside of Terrace.

He made several recom-
mendations to the hospital to
help generate funds. These
were all adopted and are
functioning. He also suggested
increased funding from the
government which was
forthcoming, therefore we
were able to continue with the
same level of services to the

from A5

Poster

beings love and light but I do
‘pray: fo the one truc God in the
name of His Son about the
people and matters which the
Holy Spirit lays on my heart.

Ms. Gregg, I have lifted you
and the clicnts of your centre
up in prayer. I would like to
encourage other Christians
who are concerned about the
growing influence of New Age
thinking in our community to
do likewise. Only God in his
infinite mercy and power can
change hearts.

this ripping down of posters
was probably motivated by a
sincere desire to protect vul-
nerable people secking
spiritual answers from falling
into entrapment by the delu-
sions of New Age. thinking.
However, this action scems to
have hardened the hearts of
Ms, Gregg and her students so
I hope the person responsible
will seek God’s will. In the
matter before considering any
other such actions.

As Christians we are called
to reach out,to others in the
name of Jesus. Let us show
Ms. Gregg and her followers
the true meaning of Christian
fove. - .

Yours in peace and truth,

Kaeleen Bruce;

Terrace, B.C.

community.

He stated = that = Mills
Memorial Hospital is a victim
of its own success. The haspi-
tal functions as a regional
referral center. The govern-
ment, however, won’t fund the

hospital as a regional center.

Remember that Mr, Walker
was appointed by the govern-
ment, This new budget docs
not even include the increased
funding that Mr. Walker sug-
gested last year,

Because of this grossly in-
adequate budget the Board of
trustees is forced into an un-
tenable situation. There are
three options,

The first option is te continue
services as before, This will
result in a deficit of more than
$700,000. The board is ans-
werable 10 the Ministry of
Health and have been told to
balance the budget or the
government will. dismiss the
board and replace them with a
Public Trustee.

The board is comprised of lo-
cal people concerned with the
state of health care available to

you. A govermnent appointee
would be a faccless bureaucrat
from the lower mainland. His
only concern would be to
balance the budget. The
destruction of local health care
services would be of little con-
sequence to him. .

The second option would be
to balance the budget, An
equally unpalatable solution. to
do~ this -would~ require~ the
elimination of health care ser-
vices lo you. Beds would have
to be closed.. This would result
in longer wailing lists for
surgery. —

The depariment of surgery is
stable at the present time; how-
ever, by closing beds the level

of work would decrease. If that
is the case then one or both of
the anaesthetisis may well be
forced to leave. Should. that
happen then the department of
surgery would collapse and
disintegrate,

This would result in loss of
surgical services at the Mills
Memorial Hospital. The hospi-
lal would be reduced (0 a col-
tage hospital. It would be able

to offer only basic emergent
and surgical services, Al} com-
plex, high risk surgery and the
majority of elective surgery
that is done here now would
have to go elsewhere.

Tt has been difficult to attract
Canadian trained graduates
here and the hospital has been
fortunate in being able to
recruit several well-trained for-
eign graduate specialists. How-
ever, the government is
making it increasingly difficult
to the point of impossibility to
comtinue along these lines.
This manpower pool will
therefore be lost to us.

A bed closure may result in
the closing of the paediatric
ward. Should this occur our
paediatrician will be forced to
Telocate. All seriously ill chil-
dren would have tc be Hown to
the lower mainland for care.

The same dilemma would
occur with our cardiologist.
There would be no one to look
after people from this region
with complicated heart disease

or other internal medicine
problems. 7

The government fails to real-
ize what a major expense and
inconvenience it is to have to
go to Vancouver for tests,
surgery, etc, This — hospital
functions as a regional referral
center and should be funded as
such. This would cnable your
hospital: to continue to grow
and offer an evensided range
of services, such as more
specialists, CT scanner, etc. -

This proposed budget does —

not allow Mills Memorial Hos-

pital to operate as a community’

hospital without serious debt,
much less as a growing
regional referral center. This
budget will also result, in: the
loss of about 10-25 jobs at the
hospital,

The third option is political
pressure. This is the best solu-
tion to a serious threat to
health care services available
to you. It is apparent that Ms.
Cull is not going to give our
hospital board the lime of day.

A good example is her
refusal to meet with the board
to discuss operating funding
for the CT scanner. Ms. Cull’s

Physician raises the call to arms

response for mecting requests .
for budget discussion ‘would.
undoubtedly be. the same,. The
only. thing ‘that --politician
respond to is public outcry...
If the community wishes. to

maintain the present standard

of local health care it must.ral-’
ly behind the hospital, It’ is
time our government recog-.
nizes the Pacific Northwest as:
a- growing, vital. and~ integral:
region of this province. We are
not second class citizens.
’ Write or call Mr. Giesbrecht_
or Ms, Cull. Let them know
that we are not going to accept
this ridiculous scenario. ;
The future of our hospital:
depends on this. This may.

. sound like worse case scenario,

It is, and unfortunately will be-
come a reality should this NDP
government be allowed. ta.

demolish our health care sys-'.
tem. Speak out, .

Sincerely, oe
Jim Dunfield, M.D, -
F.R.C,S,(C),
Chief of Surgery,

Mills Memorial .
Hospital, Terrace, B.C. -