KGH expansion a high priority, vows Abbott

By Don Plant Friday, February 16, 2007 http://www.kelownadailycourier.ca/article_4562.php

BLUES (Updated 02/15/2007 at 8:30 p.m.) Thursday, February 15, 2007, Afternoon HTML House Video (ABOUT 33:00 minutes in)

B.C.’s health minister made his strongest statement yet that Kelowna General Hospital will get a big expansion.While answering a question in the B.C. legislature Thursday, George Abbott said what’s needed is “a major investment in the redevelopment of Kelowna General Hospital. “Kelowna is an area that has grown dramatically over the last two decades. We will be making that investment. It is one of our highest priorities in this province.”Many anticipate Abbott will soon announce funding for a multi-storey tower in the main parking lot in front of KGH. The $110-million ambulatory care centre would allow the overcrowded emergency department to expand. It would feature six new operating rooms and provide more diagnostic procedures and day surgeries. An announcement could come as early as the provincial budget next week.

Abbott was grilled in the legislature Thursday over the clogged emergency room and complaints by hospital staff about the quality of patient care. Opposition health critic Adrian Dix said the “crisis” at KGH continues while the government does nothing to fix it. “I said doctors, nurses and patients have been saying for more than a year that the crisis is well beyond code purple,” Dix said in an interview after question period.Dix also criticized the health ministry for transforming a 16-bed ward on the third floor into office space. He told Abbott that KGH administrators plan to move out beds from an adjacent ward and convert it to office space as well.“He’s willing to have people in hallways, closets and laundry rooms and over-stuff emergency,” Dix said. “Even if they get major capital, we still face problems every day. Those beds would help solve those problems.”

Abbott didn’t answer Dix directly. Mary Jane Cullen, interim administrator for the Central Okanagan health region, said the 16 beds in 3-North were moved out in 2002 because the ward needed “substantial upgrades” to meet current standards of patient care.Staff relocated eight of the patients to “more modern” units in the hospital, she said. The other eight were moved to Cottonwoods Care Centre.“Three-North was in the oldest part of the building. It was built in 1940,” she said. “To renovate would take about a year and cost at least $500,000. The elevators are too small and don’t accommodate a bed.” Cullen confirmed administrators will dismantle the beds in 3-South once 120 residential-care beds open in Kelowna in April or May. Patients there will move to a ward on the fifth floor, where 20 patients now await transfer to residential-care beds once they become available.“Twenty acute-care beds are being used for residential-care patients,” Cullen said. “We’ll move patients from the fifth floor into beds in the community. We plan to move patients from 3-South into beds on the fifth floor.”The ward may be converted to office space as well, she said, because it’s “not ideal” for patient care. She agreed there will be no net gain of acute-care beds after the residential-care patients on the fifth floor move out this spring.Beds will still be a challenge, she said, but the hospital should then have better capacity for patient flow. That’s because up to 40 other patients taking up beds at KGH are awaiting beds outside the hospital.Once the 120 residential-care beds become available, more KGH patients will move out, Cullen said.