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 →