The dilapidated condition of the hospital in the Village of Queen Charlotte became the subject of debate in the provincial Legislature after local MLA Gary Coons and NDP health critic Mike Farnsworth brought up facility’s problems during question period last week.
Coons and Farnsworth wanted to get Health Minister Mike de Jong to commit to fund a project to replace the hospital, something that de Jong avoided doing during Question Period.
The Northwest Regional Hospital District that oversees the facility in Queen Charlotte has been trying to replace it for about 20 years and has spent $2.74-million of its own money on developing blueprints and a business case for a replacement hospital, which will be ready by the end of August. To move ahead on the project, the hospital district will need funding from the province, but according to the vice-chair of the district’s board and mayor of Queen Charlotte, Carol Kulesha, letters from the health ministry have been suggesting that there may be no funding for the new hospital.
“We said, ‘okay, we’re finishing the blueprints. Now what happens? Are you going to give us permission to move the clinic, tear down the building and start the roadwork?’ And I got letters saying…‘Yeah, we know you’re a priority but we can’t tell you when there will be any funding available’. I think that’s when the hospital district board hit the panic button,” says Kulesha.
The hospital district then wrote a letter to Coons asking for his assistance. In the letter, the district describes the hospital’s condition as are negatively impact families and human dignity.
At the hospital cancer-fighting drugs used in chemotherapy are being mixed in a retrofitted smokehouse because the hospital’s pharmacy doesn’t have proper ventilation. The morgue had to be condemned because of its floor, and now families have to view their dead in make-shift morgue inside an Atco trailer. The mental health and addiction facility is located five blocks away, which Kulesha says poses a security and safety risk. The only wheelchair-accessible bathroom in the hospital is the one used by visitors, and the list goes on.
“We are past the ‘make-do’ phase,” reads the letter.
Northern Health says that the hospital certainly needs to be replaced and they point to the work that has already been done to make that happen. But Northern Health suggests that the immediate concerns about the hospital’s condition are overstated, and that the building is not negatively affecting services being provided for patients. Representatives say that it may sound bad that chemotherapy drugs are being mixed in a shed, but the shed was built by Northern Health for that exact purpose.
Kulesha disagrees, saying that the staff at the hospital work hard to provide proper service there in spite of the condition of the facility, and that the hospital district will not be satisfied to be quiet and wait for provincial
funding.
During question period, health minister De Jong pointed out that the Liberal government had spent $7-billion to improve health care infrastructure across the province. When Coons countered that he was not talking about “the rest of the province” but getting funding for a specific hospital, De Jong would only say that “progress is being made” on the issue.
Health minister Mike de Jong was unavailable for comment.