Doctors in Vernon have some damning words for the current condition of their hospital, and they say its time the community learned about just how bad things are. Overcrowding has reached an all time high, and they say it is having a direct affect on patient care. "I’ve worked here for 10 years and I would say the conditions this past month are the worst I’ve seen,” says Dr. Mike Concannon, ER physician at Vernon Jubilee Hospital. Dr. Concannon, speaking on behalf of hospital physicians says the community needs to know that the current conditions are making it next to impossible for doctors to do their jobs, as well as dangerous for patients. “I was talking to one of my colleagues last week. He came on shift with 31 admitted patients,” recalls Dr. Concannon. “He had a dental chair to see a patient in and a trauma bay, so two beds to see patients in.” “We’re a North Okanagan community with roughly 50,000 people. We need more than two spots to see patients in.”
Dr. Concannon says morale amongst staff is at an all time low and he has serious concerns about their ability to deal with a real emergency. “If a bus crashes on the highway, we should be set up to treat that, and I don’t think we could deal with a Smart Car crashing on most days,” he says. The hospital’s head administrator says they’ve taken steps to lessen the pressure, including adding residential care beds and paying more than $1 million in overtime in 2009. But VJH’s Pat Furey agrees that improvements need to be made. “Is it enough? No. We are still really congested today and I do understand the concerns around that congestion,” says Furey. “But together we all need to work together to deal with it and keep people moving through our system as fast as possible.” The physicians say the solution is simple: They need more space, which is coming in the form a new care tower. But they also want better funding. “The solution is political, it’s financial. Someone needs to write cheques and someone is make the executive decision,” says Dr. Concannon.
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