[LabComm] Crisis? What Crisis?

[David Cubberley MLA]

Crisis? What Crisis?



April 27, 2006

Dear friend,

British Columbians concerned about the state of our health care system have not been reassured by recent events.

Two months ago, we learned that elderly couples around BC were being separated from their loved ones in their final days. The NDP team discovered several cases where seniors died, often alone, in facilities hours away from their homes and families.

A few weeks ago, doctors at Vancouver General Hospital, tired of feeling powerless to help the people in their care, distributed a public letter. It warned that the emergency room could no longer provide safe, timely and appropriate emergency medical care.

Just days ago, doctors at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster distributed a similar letter. In it, they warned that people were dying on stretchers because of the overcrowding at their hospital.

The crisis is not limited to Vancouver and New Westminster. 

Two weeks ago, in Nanaimo, a man suffering pneumonia died after waiting on a stretcher near a drafty door at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital for more than 7 hours. A week later, a woman who went to the same Nanaimo Hospital ER was told she had a sinus infection and sent home - when in fact she had a serious brain aneurysm.

<strong>It's hard to believe this is happening in B.C. How did things get so bad?</strong>

Here's the simple truth: the Liberals cut thousands of acute and long-term care beds over the last few years.
<ul>
<li>They broke their promise to add 5000 new long-term care beds. Instead, they shut down 2529 beds around BC, leaving seniors with no where to go but emergency rooms or facilities far from home.
</li>
<li>They shut down almost 1300 acute care beds across the province. In New Westminster, where the Royal Columbian Hospital is now dangerously overcrowded, they cut 20 per cent of the total beds.
</li>
<li>They demolished St Mary's Hospital, which used to deal with 35,000 patients and 11,000 surgical cases each year. All those patients have been dumped on the Royal Columbian. Meanwhile, there's a condo development going up at the site of St. Mary's.</li></ul>
We have a serious bed shortage. But the Campbell Liberals won't admit it.

In the Legislature this week, Carole James, my colleagues and I have hammered the Campbell Liberals again and again with questions about how they plan to make our emergency rooms safe again.

I've just returned from the latest Question Period and I still can't believe the response.

<strong>The Liberals say they have no evidence that there is a problem.</strong>

Doctors, community leaders and ordinary people have been desperately trying to make this government understand the gravity of our health care crisis since Gordon Campbell started cutting beds four years ago.

Why aren't the Liberals listening? Don't they care about the suffering their cuts have caused?

Gordon Campbell and the Liberals need to take responsibility. They need to admit there is a serious crisis in our emergency rooms. They need to admit it was wrong to close St, Mary's Hospital. They need to admit that it was a mistake to cut thousands of acute and long-term care beds across our province.

And they need to replace the beds they cut. Now.

But Gordon Campbell doesn't like to take responsibility for his mistakes. Even after an independent investigation found that his decision to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from programs protecting children at risk led to neglect and fatality, he refused to admit the error and apologize. 

It's time to make Gordon Campbell listen. <strong>I urge to you to take a few minutes to tell Mr. Campbell that he needs to replace the hospital beds he cut and reduce the dangerous backlog in our emergency rooms.</strong>

<a href="http://getinvolved-speakout.bc.ndp.ca/">Click here to visit the BC NDP Action Centre</a>, where our letters-to-the-editor tools make it easy for you to make your voice heard in major and local newspapers.

You can count on Carole James and the NDP team to keep the Campbell Liberals on the spot in the Legislature while ordinary British Columbians like yourself add their voices to the growing chorus of concern.

After years of Liberal cuts, our health care system is in serious trouble. But it's not too late if people take action and tell Gordon Campbell it's time to start listening.

Sincerely,

<strong>David Cubberley</strong><br />MLA for Saanich South<br />BC NDP Opposition Critic for Health Care

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