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Off to Prince George Ken Veldman takes

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Power to the people

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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