A woman is fighting to have South Okanagan General Hospital reopen patient rooms that the facility’s top administrator and a local doctor insist are no longer needed.
The Oliver hospital bed count stands today at 18, less than half of what it once was, and some of the vacant rooms were given over in 2005 to other community services that fall under Interior Health’s mandate.
As a result, patients are now being double-bunked in small rooms that were designed for one bed only, according to Buryl Slack, who sat on the local health board in the late 1990s prior to the regional amalgamation that led to the creation of IH.
“It was done out in the open under our noses, but we didn’t know that all their grand plans were squeezing patients out the other end,” Slack said.
But Sherry Uribe, the top administrator at SOGH, said patients are never double-bunked in spaces that were not designed for two beds, although she agreed rooms are cramped at the facility, which opened in 1973.
“The rooms are smaller than they would be if (the hospital was) designed today, because of all the equipment that we’ve added to normal patient care,” Uribe said.
Slack doesn’t buy it: “She can call them what she likes, but that is not the case.”
Uribe also agreed staff does try to discharge patients as quickly as safety permits, and said having other services, such as community care nurses, under the same roof at SOGH helps.
“What we’re trying to do is get people home, which is where most people want to be,” she said. “That’s what this setup allows us to do.”
Slack said she was alerted to the space issue in May when her husband was a patient there. She said doctors asked her to fight on their behalf because they didn’t want to go on record with their concerns due to fear of retribution from IH.
Reached by phone Thursday, Dr. Robert Calder, who regularly sees patients at SOGH, said there is no issue.
“Our hospital’s fine,” he said. “We love it. We have no problem.”
According to IH, the hospital has seen a gradual decrease in beds, which numbered 45 in 1986. Uribe said that’s a product of modern medicine.
“All sorts of things that required a hospital stay overnight when I first started (as a nurse 38 years ago) are now done as day-visit procedures,” she explained.
As of Wednesday morning, SOGH had 21 patients in beds, according to figures provided by Uribe, although the number has averaged 15.3 since April 1. The facility’s maximum is 25.
Kevin Barry, a member of the regional executive of the B.C. Nurses’ Union, said Slack’s concerns are “old news.”
“The issue there is more around, from a nurse’s point of view, staffing when they have (extra) patients there,” Barry said, which is “an issue throughout the whole of the province.”
Slack is undeterred and said she will invite IH to a public meeting to discuss her concerns.
