The Invermere Dialysis Unit that was temporarily closed will not be re-opened and Columbia River Revelstoke MLA Norm Macdonald is concerned over how this will effect people in the riding.
“I think that this is a service that is not available in Golden. It may only affect a small number of people who may need the service. At present, they would have to go to Invermere which is a bit of an inconvenience but certainly nothing compared to going to Cranbrook,” he said.
Macdonald explained he has talked to people who are worried about having to cover greater distances to receive their treatments.
“We have heard from numerous residents who have been affected by this closure”, said Macdonald. “Many people in this area will be forced to travel vast distances for dialysis services a number of times every week. It’s simply not acceptable for even more services to be removed from this area.”
Macdonald added that even though he was not sure of the number of people who were using the service, the fact was it should be provided.
“You never know who is going to have to use the service and what we are seeing is we are losing services. What it would do is force people to move out of these areas and into places that have these services.”
Macdonald added that it is tough for the provincial government to say there is no money for this when he sees obvious examples of waste.
“At the same time that the BC Liberals are choosing to spend $15 million on tax payer-funded partisan ads, they are telling local residents that there is no money to provide dialysis services to residents of Golden and the Columbia Valley,” said Macdonald.
Paula James is the regional director for the Renal Program in Interior Health. She said the process was not something that just happened, and was based on the sustainability of the program.
“After discussions about the sustainability of the unit (in Invermere) with limited patient volumes and ongoing staffing challenges, Interior Health made the decision to permanently close the Invermere dialysis Unit effective immediately, last Friday (Jan.11).”
James said that Interior Health also did projections for renal patients, which added more reasons for the decision.
“We have had challenges over the last number of years with maintaining the number of patients and being that it was the only unit in B.C. of its kind operated with one nurse, it had been challenging to provide the human resources for that,” she said. “It has been challenging for the staff member, and for the patients as well in regards to the up and down of it being open and not open.”
James went on and said that this type of service is a specialty service.
“An effective alternative to facility hemodialysis is patients having independent home dialysis. So the thing with renal disease is that it is a chronic kidney disease and it is life threatening. Patients need to be dialyzed, but we also want them to have a quality of life as well. This home treatment is a viable option for the majority of our patients,” she said. “We have quite a data base system in our province for renal patients through the B.C. provincial renal association. We look at the province, and in our case our health authority, and look at the number of pre-dialysis patients, and see if there is going to be growth over the next few years. In that area there is a lack of growth. It is not only today but we don’t see in the next five years the growth of renal patients to support it staying open.”
According to James there are no patients for this service in Golden. “If that changed and there was a patient in Golden, or wherever, they would look at where it would be best to go. If you look at it like an I.C.U. service, it is a specialty service. You can’t have a specialty service everywhere…we have to ensure that we are providing quality care to the patient.”
One person in Golden who did receive treatment in the past at the unit in Invermere is Rick Page.
After moving to Golden, Page was diagnosed with kidney failure, which means he had to drive back and forth to Invermere , three times a week, for more than a year to receive treatment.
Page said he was surprised to hear the facility was closing.
“The number of patients go up and down…I guess the number of patients declined to the point where Interior Health was not going to run the show anymore. This was kind of unusual because there is usually some discussion or debate with this kind of thing. But they didn’t do that,” Page said. “It was a ridiculous thing to do.”
Page also said he though the nurse who worked in the facility needed more support over the time he was at the facility, which was very important to him and his life.
“If it hadn’t have been available in Invermere I would have had to move, which is a big issue. My wife and I are retired. We would have had to move, and there is no way around it because you either have dialyse or you die,” he said.
Page explained that even the drive to Invermere and back was tough on both him and his wife.
He said that after receiving treatment his wife would have to drive them home after.
“It was a hardship on both of us and it would be even worse to go to Cranbrook. It would be a great hardship,” he said.
Donna Page, who said she was a nurse for 40 years, also wanted to share her view on the decision that was made to close the facility.
She felt it was on the government to make sure everyone was receiving equal care which she believes is not happening.
“All of a sudden people in Golden and Invermere have become second class citizens,” she said.
Macdonald said he felt this was just one more way services are being cut back in smaller areas.
“There is no question that over the past 10 years we have one service after another removed from not only Golden but also rural communities in particular. They have centralized again and again to the detriment of our community,” he said.
James said there are full renal programs in Kamloops, Kelowna, Penticton and Trail where the initial testing has always been, and that telehealth has also been added to help people through this system and receive treatment.
