Healthcare Questions to Our Political Candidates

In collaboration with the BC Health Coalition, SOHC has crafted 6 questions about healthcare and distributed them to all four political candidates in the Fraser-Nicola riding. The candidates have two weeks to respond. We will publish their answers in our two local papers, our website and our facebook page. The BC Health Coalition will publish the questions on their website www.bchealthcoalition.ca and their member organizations are encouraged to use the questions in their own communities. Continue reading

CBC Radio – on Community Consultation

UBC Okanagan to help Princeton health care crisis

The town of Princeton has turned to researchers at the University of B.C. Okanagan to try to figure out how to fix health care problems in the community.

Since May, people in Princeton have had to make due with an emergency room that’s closed 4 nights a week and they have been lobbying and meeting with the Interior Health Authority and provincial government officials to change that, but there’s still no solution.

So community leaders decided to bring in some expert help by calling researchers from UBC Okanagan to brainstorm ways to improve health care in Princeton.

C.B.C. Reporter Brady Strachan spoke to people in Princeton about the issues.

Listen to CBC Radio Daybreak South coverage here.

Princeton Hospital Problems Addressed in the Legislature

EZ-ROCK
Princeton Hospital Problems Addressed in the Legislature
By: Anita Sthankiya
5/18/2012
Princeton Hospital Problems Addressed in the Legislature.

This week in the Legislature in Victoria the Princeton General Hospital was discussed by Fraser Nicola MLA Harry Lali and BC’s Health Minister Mike de Jong.

Harry Lali was quick to point out the issues at the Princeton Hospital have been ongoing for years. …more

We’re A Hole, So No Hospital?

Submitted 

April 24, 2012 Dawn Johnson’s ‘Current Comment
Similkameen News Leader
Copyright 2012 Bengel Publishing Inc.
Used with Permission

Princeton’s lack of emergency services has been in the news recently, with the result that I learned there is more to the story out there than broadcasted.

A friend of mine contacted me by telephone to relate her experience with an Interior Health Authority (IHA) employee. She was so upset by her conversation with this employee that she felt I should hear about it.

She spoke casually to the IHA employee about the plight of people in Princeton and their lack of physicians. She told me this was the reply: “Well, if people choose to live in a little hole like Princeton where doctors don’t want to go…They should move to the city.”

My friend, who lived here for years when we had a real hospital and a full complement of physicians, gave the IHA employee a blast about how it was the policy of IHA to reduce the Princeton hospital to the point where physicians cannot truly be physicians. She told him of the removal of surgical facilities and maternity facilities, and she admitted she became much more angry because of his attitude. She reminded him that people who lived in Princeton had their hospital gutted by IHA. Continue reading

Doctor shortage closes small-town ER on Labour Day | CTV British Columbia

CTV
By: ctvbc.ca
Date: Monday Sep. 5, 2011 6:24 PM PT
Doctor shortage closes small-town ER on Labour Day | CTV British Columbia.

The people of Princeton, B.C. are seeing the consequences of a province-wide rural doctor shortage after their emergency room had to be closed because nobody was available to staff it. …more

Emergency pain in Princeton – South Okanagan News – Castanet.net

CASTANET.net
by Jennifer Zielinski – Story: 73431
Apr 4, 2012
Emergency pain in Princeton – South Okanagan News – Castanet.net.

Despite efforts to recruit doctors and locums the Princeton General Hospital has been unable to provide consistent emergency services.

The situation became worse for Princeton residents on April 1, when one of the local doctors was no longer able to provide full emergency coverage. This means there will be more frequent Emergency Department (ED) closures, and unless Interior Health (IH) makes adjustments the closures could occur during peak periods. …more