Hundreds of concerned citizens gathered last Friday at the Slocan Community Health Centre against resurgent threats to emergency medical services in New Denver.
A battle cry issued the day before on the New Denver B.C. & Area Community Board on Facebook sparked the community gathering and protest.
Danika Skye Hammond’s Facebook post alerted the community that the current locum [temporary] doctor “was seriously considering permanently locating here and had almost confirmed a real estate deal to buy property,” but that she had received a phone call from Dr. Curis Bell with Interior Health Association [IHA] who “proceeded to strongly discourage her from staying at our facility and in our community.” This was followed by an accusation that the IHA doesn’t want the community to recruit a physician. She issued a plea for letters and email campaign to West Kootenay-Boundary MLA Katrine Conroy and Health Minister Adrian Dix.
New Denver currently has one full time doctor and has formed a committee, whose goal is to recruit additional doctors to serve the community of approximately 500. Doctors in rural communities are in high demand with many centres going to great lengths to attract medical staff.
Dr. Mike Ertel, IHA Vice President of Medicine and Quality stated, “Interior Health would like to apologize for any confusion that has resulted from discussions we have had with a physician interested in one of our vacant positions in New Denver.
Those discussions would be part of a physician hiring process for any position in any community, but we recognize, in this case, that they have created concerns for local residents.”
New Denver has done a tremendous job of highlighting what this community has to offer physicians, and it is great news that there is a physician expressing interest in coming to New Denver.
“I want to stress that Interior Health remains committed to bringing new physicians to New Denver to support sustainable local health care services.”
Local business owner and pharmacist Ward Taylor isn’t buying it. When asked why he was protesting, he replied “To make the best effort to put an end to the pattern that we are seeing with Interior Health, which is basically decimating rural health care. It happened in Kaslo and New Denver is next on their list. It’s not right.”
Questions of ethics on the part of IHA have been raised. Critics say doctors in Kaslo were removed before IHA finally cutting back medical care hours to the 9-5 model, leaving that community and those further north such as Lardeau and Meadow Creek with a two hour drive to Nelson in good weather.
Slocan Councillor Leah Main, New Denver Fire Chief Leonard Casley, and New Denver Mayor Ann Bunka were in attendance as was Colin Moss, Chair of the Slocan District Chamber of Commerce Health Committee who said, “I would really like to thank the community. The way that you have conducted yourselves after these meetings and keeping stuff very respectable has been really helpful in our efforts to find a doctor. It makes our job a little bit easier. We will be successful. We want the Health Minister to see what community support we have and can elicit what we have in one day.”
The community leaders would like to gain an audience with Dix to have a conversation about the prospective closure of after-hours emergency care at their hospital. They request letters and emails of support to be addressed to MLA Katrine Conroy and Dix on their behalf.
