Report  notes  needs of the North and honours Dr. Bert Kelly

Prince George, B.C.-  The Northern Medical  Society, which advocates for health care  service improvements for  northern residents,  delivered its annual “Kelly Report”  at the Dr. Bob Ewert  Memorial Diner and Lecture.

The annual  report  takes the pulse of the  achievements that have been  made over the previous  year,  and delivers a prescription  for  needs to  improve  health services  in Northern B.C.

What was  different this year,  was that the Kelly Report,   was not delivered by its author,  Dr. Bert Kelly.

Dr. Kelly was conspicuously absent from the Memorial Dinner,  which is a fundraiser  to aid  students in the Northern Medical Program.   Dr. Kelly    has closed his  practice  in order to  attend to personal  health matters.

MLA Shirley Bond referred to Dr. Kelly  as the “pebble in her shoe,  a constant reminder of needs  that need to be addressed” .  As a member of the Northern Medical Society,  Dr. Kelly has been  the “nudger” to  bring about change.  He was instrumental in the development of the Northern Cancer Centre, has  worked to make the University Hospital  a teaching Hospital, establishing   training programs for a number of diagnostic fields and  has been the voice for the Northern Medical Society  on a number of  health care delivery issues.  While recognizing  Dr. Kelly  did not work alone on those issues,   Dr. Bill Simpson said  Dr. Kelly  was the  leader of the  team  “Without  his leadership, without his personality I don’t think we would  be standing here thinking about how well we’ve done.”

It was Dr. Simpson  who delivered the Kelly Report,  praising the recent announcement of the government’s approval for a concept plan for  new  surgical suites, ( see previous story).  “The go ahead to  proceed with planning for a surgical tower  and that’s being  fast tracked by the government, means that we can build  probably two years  earlier.  This building is going  to be  truly momentous, probably as big as the cancer centre.  It’s going to be 6 storeys,  it’s going to have extra surgical beds,   and 12 state of the art operating rooms.”   Dr. Simpson says when complete, “There will be an enormous change in surgical delivery.”

There is also a promise of  improvement to cardiac services.   Dr. Simpson  drove the importance of that  service home,  by saying if   one  of the people  attending the dinner  was suffering from  chest pain,  they would likely have to spend a week  in hospital before being transferred to Vancouver.   “Now if this dinner was in Kamloops, Vernon,  Kelowna, Penticton, Nanaimo, Victoria, Richmond Abbottsford,  New Westminster,    you would be, within hours,  in a cardiac intervention suite”  and  would have  received  treatment  that  would probably  saved  a life. “Northern Health is the only (Health) Authority that doesn’t have a cardiac intervention suite.  There is no one in this room  who would say what we are asking for is unreasonable.”

And there is  other work to be done.

Dr. Simpson   says there is a glaring deficiency in the delivery of training for physio therapists,  speech therapists, and occupational therapists. He said  there are just 86 physio therapists in the north,  and  3251 in the south “It doesn’t take a genius to see there is a problem.”     Dr.Simpson says the  discrepancy  is critical, especially  as  many of physio therapists  already in the north  will soon be  reaching retirement age  “In the rest of  B.C,  there is a physio for every 1330 (people), in Northern Health  there is one for every 3600, we have to fix this.”

“We need to train them in the North” said  Dr. Simpson.  He says that while this issue has been under discussion for a decade,  there seems to be a roadblock   either  from the Ministry of Advanced Education, or UBC.

“We only ask  for things that are reasonable”  said Dr. Simpson “That any reasonable man would expect as a patient in the North,  to receive the same sort of care  that they would if they lived in the Okanagan or  the lower mainland.”