ER capacity forces patient out

By Richard Rolke - Vernon Morning Star - April 18, 2008

Doctors argue that unsafe conditions at Vernon Jubilee Hospital are escalating. Physicians claim there is a severe shortage of acute care beds and as an example, they point to a situation where a patient with acute appendicitis had to be transferred to Salmon Arm’s hospital because VJH was over-capacity. “I was told that if I operated on that patient, after already operating on three other emergencies that night, that there would be absolutely no space in the hospital to deal with any other serious emergencies,” said Dr. Hamish Hwang, a surgeon, in a letter to officials. “For a regional hospital serving over 130,000 people not to be able to deal with a patient with acute appendicitis, a common and basic disease, this is a terrible state of affairs.” Hwang goes on to write that by Tuesday morning, VJH was at code purple status and 30 per cent over-capacity at 161 patients.“The facilities at VJH are no longer able to provide safe and timely medical and surgical care to the citizens of the North Okanagan and Shuswap,” he said.

Dr. Jeff Demetrick, chief of surgery, isn’t surprised by what happened Monday. “We are seeing these situations more often,” he said, adding that it becomes a question of what is less dangerous patients — being put in a hall or sent to another facility.“It happens more often where we need to balance these things out.” The Interior Health Authority admits there has been significant pressure on VJH over the last three weeks, with part of it the result of the flu and other ailments. Peter Du Toit, administrator, makes no apologies for patients being sent to other hospitals. “IHA has a network of hospitals to ensure that if a patient has to be moved to get care, they can,” he said. “If we are full and a procedure can be done safely at Salmon Arm, we have the ability to do that.” Du Toit also insists that actions are being taken to improve the number of acute care beds at VJH, including through the opening of residential care beds in the community.“We are dealing with it but the capacity is above capacity at this time,” he said.

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Don Quixote Note: B154 HOSPITAL CAPITAL COST FINANCING : THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Provincial Government assume 100% responsibility of capital hospital expenditures for all municipalities in British Columbia and eliminate the hospital property tax imposed on taxpayers outside the Greater Vancouver Regional District area.

NOT ENDORSED BY UBCM

At Dec 5 Posting Minister of Health replies to Don Quixote E-Mail is the reason why the local taxpayers pays 40% of the capital costs of new construction while the municipalities in the lower mainline no longer do since the late 90's. "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."

Vernon City Council to their credit took the above resolution to UBCM last year but it was not endorsed. The resolution initially was proposed by Coun. Beardsell but was shot down by the UBCM resolutions committee chaired by Coun Hobson of Kelowna. How effectively it was advocated for is unknown

Hopefully it will be proposed again by Vernon Council and Coun. Beardsell will take the opportunity to attend UBCM as a most knowledgeable and effective advocate of this necessary reform. The 2008 UBCM Convention will be held in Penticton, BC from September 22-26. If successful we could continue to pay as residents taxpayers but use this money for the provision of additional beds etc.