I am a senior that has been on the non-elective surgery list since the beginning of November and recently was advised that I will still have to wait until June or July. I am in severe pain 24/7 as the pain killers are not working anymore and I am now having to use a cane to get around.
It is almost like living in a ‘Third World’ country when “required” surgery takes this long. Do the seniors in this province deserve this kind of treatment after having worked and contributed to the provincial coffers all of their adult life?
It is a disgrace and totally disrespectful to have patients in hallways, our Vernon hospital is in code purple mode almost daily. At times at 30 per cent over capacity.
Due to this “overcrowding/code purple” patients that are already prepped for surgery are sent home to wait for another day/week/months.
With the new hospital “care tower’ scheduled to open in September 2011 – will this situation change?
I doubt it as does every other person living in this area. There will be no added acute care beds in the new tower unless the two shelled-in floors are completed. The doctors and nurses, as caring and wonderful as they are, can only do so much!! We need at least one of the shelled-in floors and another operating room completed and functional now, not years down the road.
Everyone knows that overcrowding anywhere, especially a hospital, causes infections and disease which requires more ‘health dollars’ to be spent needlessly.
Vernon, Coldstream, Lumby, Cherryville, Armstrong and Enderby have all increased in population, however our acute beds for this area have either been reduced or remained the same.
When lottery tickets were made legal in Canada, those funds were to be spent on hospitals and health care. The lady that fought for this was from Vernon, and went to Ottawa to negotiate directly with the Prime Minister of the day. Are any of the lottery funds funneled to health care, I don’t think so.
Perhaps you people in these elected positions should check into this.
Inga Pattie
Vernon
