Premier Aware of Hospital Needs in P.G.
Prince George, B.C. – In recent weeks the Province has announced nearly $130 million dollars to create new surgical suites at Vancouver General, and to increase surgical capacity over the next year. But the dollars are ear marked for the lower mainland.
In Prince George, surgeons have expressed disappointment that there has been no financial commitment for the University Hospital of Northern B.C. as waiting lists are long for non urgent surgeries.
Premier Christy Clark in Prince George today for an announcement on forestry, ( in photo at right with MLA Shirley Bond) says recently, well over a hundred million dollars have already been spent in Prince George “On the Cancer Centre, on improvements to the hospital and Kordyban Lodge.”
The Premier adds she is aware there has been a lot of talk about improvements to the hospital facility here “Shirley (MLA Shirley Bond) and I have talked about that and I think Shirley continues to meet with folks about the planning that’s underway. So we’re listening, I’m listening, I am sure that when the plans get a little bit more developed and the request is a little more fulsome, we will have a chance to look at it, and really have a thorough talk about it.”
Comments
Ms. Bond, please talk about Angiograms done locally and helicopter ambulances, we need both as well as more surgeries.
Two “safe” tidings. There won’t be any election dollars announced for our hospital.
Two safe ridings is right, there is only so much money to go around, better for them to spend it in swing ridings.
The lower mainland is doing way better that the rest of BC, and yet that is where the political power lays. As for us? I suppose we can always play the part of an impoverished child asking for a little more, but we all know what the answer will be don’t we?
ht tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upD6cB9Rzvk
All the while, the child poverty rate increases for us in the north (now approaching 40% in Prince Rupert).
I cant help but thinking that if one of our well paid politicians in the north had a heart attack and got the chance to experience the PG Hospital angiogram system (oh wait there isnt one !! ) , that we would have a angio clinic at the PG hospital right quick ! ,
If you read between the lines it appears that there will be no money for the PG Regional Hospital anytime soon. Considering the area it serves the PG Hospital should be a top of the line facility.
Its rather strange that they have money for the Wood Innovation Centre expansion (which serves no useful purpose) however they have no money to improve how surgeries get done in Prince George.
Perhaps we could go so far as to say that the constant effort to build up the downtown is actually having a negative effect in other areas.
Bond says she’s aware of the concerns.
“Northern Health has to identify this among their highest priorities,” she says. “Currently there are other priorities on their list ahead of Prince George, including Terrace and Dawson Creek. So, it is a matter of working with the Health Authority, working with the planning group and then putting that case together and being aggressive when that’s taken to government.”
5 years of surplus and a $1billion “prosperity fund”
PGRH and Northern Health have been planning and asking for assistance for 5 years
Now we have to be “aggressive” with our own government for our tax dollars?
Dr. Simpson says, with the “critical” condition of the current operating rooms, local surgeons aren’t able to access one day a week, and wait lists are climbing from 1,200 ten years ago to 2,500 and “it’s going up every month.”
“We’re being shortchanged again,” says Dr. Simpson. “And I’m not talking about the medical staff, I’m talking about the patients in the North. So Northern Health patients are not provided with the services that they deserve.”
He says there is now a moratorium on recruiting surgeons.
CKPG-TV, February 09, 2017
But hey, they’re putting money into tree planting by giving corporate welfare to the forestry companies, so time to move on to the next photo-op
Quit smoking everyone. I’m done.
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