Vernon Jubilee Hospital is at serious risk of losing the in-house laundry department that has for so long, provided a reliable service in support of our health care.
The loss of 15 full-time jobs is a devastation to 15 local families. These living wage jobs provide an income that not only support the families, they indirectly support all of the businesses that provide the goods and services the families use.
The same goes for the other 160 jobs in other Interior Health facilities.
Governments at all levels go on about the need for good jobs, especially during elections. Well, we have them already. Let’s make an effort to keep them.
Interior Health officials admit this is not about efficiency of operations. Rather, it is about a relatively small capital investment for laundry equipment that amounts to about $1 million a year for 10 years.
For some perspective, back in 2001, the B.C. Liberals came to power with the promise of dramatic tax cuts.
To the average person, the amount of reduced tax made virtually no substantial difference because most of the tax savings went to the wealthiest among us.
Those tax cuts resulted in a loss of $2 billion of revenue the B.C. government could have otherwise used to properly fund public capital health care investments.
I think they could, if they wanted to, come up with necessary funds in this case.
Demand proper funding for a strong public health care system.
Dan LaRiviere
Vernon
