http://www.vernonmorningstar.com/ (Letter to editor published July 6)
I am responding to your article and editorial about cost sharing of the capital costs of health facilities in the June 17 Morning Star (“Victoria hammered over funding” and “Victoria must be taken to task”). The practice of regional hospital districts providing 40 per cent of the capital costs for health care facilities has been in place since the proclamation of the Hospital District Act in 1967. I can imagine that due to the lack of investment in Vernon by the prior NDP government during the 1990s, that people would forget the funding formula that has been in existence for decades.
The introduction of the Hospital District Act 40 years ago allows regional hospital districts to contribute a share of the capital funding needed to provide acute care services in their region. In fact, the province recently approved expansion plans for a multi-storey diagnostic and treatment building at Vernon Jubilee Hospital to help ensure the delivery of quality medical care for North Okanagan residents. The new building will include an expanded emergency department, outpatient centre, surgical services, intensive care/cardiac care and central sterilization services. The Vernon Jubilee Hospital expansion is estimated to cost $81 million. Our government is planning more than $2.1 billion in capital investments in the health care system throughout the province over the next three years. We will continue to work with regional hospital districts to ensure that patients in Vernon, and throughout B.C., can receive the best of care in their health facilities.
George Abbott
Health Minister
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Don Quixote Notes:
The reply of this Minister to my original E-mail of Oct. 31 as posted at Minister of Health replies to Don Quixote E-Mail is interesting when contrasted to the letter published above.
Some excerpts from e-mail:
"Regional Hospital Districts (RHDs) were created in 1967 under the Hospital District Act in order to create a consistent and equitable approach to financing local government's share of hospital projects through local property taxation. Prior to this, only some municipal areas contributed through property taxes and there were concerns that many property owners in British Columbia (BC) paid nothing towards a hospital system to which all had access."
"The larger lower mainland cities listed in your email, and indicated as not having a portion of property taxes collected for hospital purposes, are all members of the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD). "
In the late 1990's, the highest priority of the GVRD was to find a new way to govern and finance transportation for the region. The Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority Act created a new transportation authority for the region, the Greater Vancouver Transit Authority (GVTA). This Act was co-operatively developed by the Province of BC and the GVRD, with the support of its member local governments. The GVRHD was dissolved December 31, 1998, as it was no longer to have an active role in lower mainland health planning or financing. The Act also provided that the GVTA receives revenue from the gas tax and from the portion of property taxes which previously went to pay a share of hospital capital costs for the region.As a result, the Province assumed responsibility for the full cost of health capital projects for which GVRHD funding was no longer available, which enabled the GVTA to replace the tax levy for hospital purposes with an equivalent tax levy for transportation purposes.
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Don Quixote Reply to this letter:
When you read the letter to the Editor you would assume that this act had been in full force and effect since 1967 and that all property owners in B.C. shared equally in financing Capital Financing for hospitals in their Hospital District. It sounds like the 40% is the amount that ALL regional hospital districts ante up for hospitals to be built in their area. The 40% figure is actually the suggested amount that hospital districts (read property taxpayers) are told they must put up to get to the front of the line, the actual Act allows for a lesser contribution.
As to ALL property taxpayers contributing on an equal footing this was changed in 1998 as was explained in the e-mail so that the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) taxpayers no longer are forced to contribute in this manner towards hospital capital funding.
I orginally thought that this was just another sunshine tax for the heartland but investigation shows the Provincial Government is screwing the Northland, and Victoria Island equally. All the resolution that City Council is pursuing at UBCM in September is saying is that ALL property tax payers be on an equal footing. It seems incredible that a residential taxpayer and the owner of the local pub or Bank in Vernon pay towards a new hospital but their counterparts in Vancouver do not!
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