Dr.Kelly To Continue to Push For Northern Health Reforms

By 250 News

Dr. Bert Kelly reads from notes at last Friday's Cancer Clinic Announcement  new conference

There are some with the Provincial Government of B.C. who refer to him as ``a pebble in their shoe”.  He   is Dr. Bert Kelly, and as head of the Northern Medical Society he is considered the driver behind many of the initiatives which have changed the way health services are delivered in the North.

Kelly was actively involved in the push for a full service cancer clinic.  “I don’t think I have stopped grinning for three days since I was told the Premier was going to make the official announcement” Kelly told the crowd at Prince George Regional Hospital on the day the details of the $100 million dollar project were released.  While Kelly was quick to praise the Premier for making this “far sighted and courageous decision” Kelly says there is more to be done.

Specifically, Kelly is pushing for what he calls a safe , secure supply of the qualified people needed to work at such a facility.  “It’s not just Doctors and nurses, its laboratory technicians, its x-ray techs, its MRI techs, its CT techs, its physicists, and a whole raft of other people.” In other words, it’s a group of experts which may be difficult to recruit and retain.  He doesn’t agree that having to travel outside the province or the country to find the needed experts is a “secure supply”.

So, the good Doctor has a plan.  “Let us train our own”.  There is already some progress being made, such as the med lab tech training program which will launch at the College of New Caledonia in January of 2008.  

He would like to see a radiology training program for the College of New Caledonia to produce the x-ray techs, MRI techs, CT techs, all the experts that are in short supply.  Kelly has always firmly supported the idea of education being the key to keeping people in the north “We will train our own people” says Kelly, that means not only the technicians needed for a cancer clinic, but he envisions physiotherapists, speech pathologists and occupational therapists being trained at UNBC, it is a vision he plans to press with the Minister of Health “George Abbott and I are destined to become very close friends over the next five years.”

There is still a lot of work to do before the first northern cancer patient is treated at a new cancer clinic, a clinic that is to open in 5 short years.  For Dr. Bert Kelly and the Northern Medical Society, the time has come to rollup the sleeves and work to meet the deadline, “The spirit of change is abroad in the north again, and in Prince George there is an energy, a vitality that has been sadly absent these past few long years.  The Can Do feeling is back, and we are inundated with innovative ideas from all quarters.”

It would appear the Provincial Minister of Health may find it will be a while before his shoes finally get comfortable.

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