Vancouver Island North Actions to Defend the Right to Health Care from Birth to Death
– Barbara Biley –
Canadians have a right to health care from birth and before, until death, and it is our expectation and demand that the state should provide that right with a guarantee. None of the cartel parties that want to form government and which claim that the issue is not one of rights but of “affordability” have convinced people to give up this demand. In fact, the experience over the last 20 years and more is of anti-social policies enacted by federal and provincial governments, including centralization and the establishment of corporate “boards” to manage health care, repeated ‘reorganizations’ and privatization. These clearly show the need for people to speak in their own name, to discuss the health care needs in their communities and the country as a whole, and to organize to empower themselves to provide what is needed.
The cartel parties vie with one another to get our votes, promising solutions to problems like funding hospitals, providing home care and building necessary residences with appropriate care for seniors. More often than not they ‘listen’ and say the ‘right words’ to convince people that all they need do is elect the right party and their problems will be solved. Not so. One need only look at the promises of the Liberals in 2015 that they, unlike the Harper Conservative government, would stand up for public health care. Once in power the Trudeau government has not only implemented all the Harper government’s cuts to transfer payments but enabled and encouraged privatization and increased foreign control of health care in Canada.
Health care workers and residents on Vancouver Island, particularly the northern part of the island, have learned through their own experience that collective action and not passive acceptance of the status quo are needed to defend the right to health care and to hold governments and agencies to account.
Alongside the fight of health care workers for adequate staffing levels and increased investments in hospitals, home care and seniors’ residences, the community is waging two important fights right now. One concerns the conditions at Comox Valley Seniors Village, the other the transfer of clinical pathology from the Campbell River Hospital lab to Victoria.
Below are brief reports on these two aspects of the efforts of people who are organizing for change, and breaking through the veil of silence behind which those with power and privilege act against our interests. They are informing everyone of what is taking place and mobilizing public opinion in favour of what is needed by the community.
Families and Supporters Force Vancouver Island Health Authority to Take Action
On September 30, the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA), in response to a report by the Comox Valley Medical Health Officer, put Comox Valley Seniors Village, a 136-bed residential care facility in Courtenay, under direct administration by the Health Authority. Comox Valley Seniors Village is owned by Anbang Insurance Group Co., a multinational based in China that was taken over by the Chinese government in 2018 after its chair was imprisoned for corruption. This was part of the purchase of all Retirement Concepts seniors’ residences in Canada, approved by the federal government in 2017.
What “administration” means is that for six months the management of this facility will be carried out by a representative of the VIHA, which is the government-established regional board responsible for health care services on Vancouver Island. In the case of two other Retirement Concepts facilities on Vancouver Island — Selkirk and Nanaimo Seniors Village — VIHA has sent its own employees, nurses and care aides, to the facilities to ensure adequate care for the residents.
In recommending administration at Comox Valley Seniors Village, the local Medical Health Officer reported: “On careful review and consideration of the Licensing Report it is my determination that the Licensee is either unwilling or unable to meet the minimal requirements of the Community Care and Assisted Living Act and the expected standard as per s.7(1)(b)(i) to ensure the health, safety and dignity of persons in care is not being met.” In support of her recommendation, she outlined months of licensing reports, recommendations and compliance orders and the failure of the facility to respond adequately.
This action follows months of activism on the part of families and other people in the community who have lent a hand to do research, write letters, contact Island Health, Licensing and Ministry of Health officials. All residential care facilities in BC are required to have a Family Council but families of residents who were clearly in danger from inadequate staffing, improper cleaning protocols and many other problems quickly found that the Family Council was run by management and complaints and concerns were not addressed.
Families established their own independent organization, Crying Out Loud, and increased their pressure. Under the name Seniors Voices, a website was set up by community members where families could share their stories, concerns and demands. When no significant improvement took place they demanded, on May 20, that the Health Authority take over the facility and run it as seniors’ care should be run, as a public enterprise, not a publicly-funded private enterprise in which profit, not care, is the aim of the owners. They contacted the Medical Health Officer for the Comox Valley, who followed up on licencing investigations and took action at the end of September.
The company blames inadequate staffing on a systemic shortage of care staff and not the substandard wages that they pay, which are well below the negotiated compensation levels in all the publicly-owned seniors residences. The staffing shortage as well as other problems related to cleaning, food services and others, have reached a crisis point in the three facilities where the Health Authority has taken some action. These are the squeaky wheels and health care workers and families know all too well that these are not the only places in which “the health, safety and dignity of people in care” are not being met.
Having come this far, the families and community have no intention to back off but are closely participating in developments, including providing information and presenting proposals for measures that can be taken to raise the standards of care. Beyond the concerns about the care of their family members and friends in Comox Valley Seniors Village, activists have also embarked on discussing the bigger picture of seniors’ care, public versus private ownership, how to provide seniors’ rights with a guarantee and to empower themselves to bring about the changes in health care delivery that are needed.
Fighting to Maintain Laboratory Services in the North Island Hospitals
VIHA is in the process of implementing a plan to remove clinical pathology services from the two hospitals on the north of Vancouver Island North, in Campbell River and in the Comox Valley. Such a move will seriously affect the care provided to patients in the hospitals.
Centralizing clinical pathology in Victoria, over three hours away by road, increases the time that it takes for local doctors to get test results, leading to delays in care. Clinical pathology (testing of body fluids, blood, urine, etc.) has already been removed from the hospital in Campbell River, and VIHA’s intent is to do the same to the Comox Valley hospital in 2020.
The laboratory staff in Campbell River, along with 75 doctors and all but one of the five pathologists currently working in the two hospitals, as well as local governments and the advocacy group Citizens for Quality Health Care, are actively organizing to protect the lab at the Comox Valley hospital and to demand the return of clinical pathology services to the Campbell River hospital.
The “justification” that is being given for the change is that samples that are sent to Victoria are analyzed by clinical pathologists, specialists, while tests done in the community hospitals are performed by general pathologists. The implication is that “specialist” equals “better.” The truth of the matter is that in 2014 a group of clinical pathologists in Victoria established the Vancouver Island Clinical Pathology Consulting Corporation (VICPCC) and successfully lobbied VIHA for the contract for all clinical pathology on the island. At that time, VIHA’s department head for pathology was a shareholder in the corporation.
The communities on Vancouver Island fought to have two hospitals when the plan was to replace them with one hospital on “neutral territory” between the two population centres, which are 45 kilometres apart, an inconvenience for everyone. That battle was won and two hospitals were built, one in each of the major population centres on the north island. Then the communities fought against paid parking at the hospitals and, unlike most hospitals in BC, parking is free.
The two new hospitals were built with laboratories equipped and staffed for the functions of community hospitals. The removal of clinical pathology from the Campbell River Hospital has meant delays in test results, extreme frustration for lab workers who are not permitted to consult with the pathologist working in their own lab if they have a question about a test but have to phone or email Victoria and often wait hours or days for responses that used to take minutes.
Various initiatives have been taken to reverse this plan to degrade hospital services for North Island patients, among them a petition started by Citizens For Quality Health Care which calls on the legislature to:
1) Provide funding for three pathologists for the Campbell River hospital (currently funded for 2.4 and the work is being done by 2),
2) Restore clinical pathology service at the Campbell River Hospital, and
3) conduct an independent investigation into the apparent conflict of interest that resulted in the contract between VIHA and VICPCC.
Copies of the petition are available and have to be returned by November 14 to Lois Jarvis in Campbell River, 250-287-3096 or Barb Biley in the Comox Valley, 250-338-3149.
Copies of the petition are available and have to be returned by November 14 to Lois Jarvis in Campbell River, 250-287-3096 or Barb Biley in the Comox Valley, 250-338-3149.
Barbara Biley is the MLPC candidate in Courtenay—Alberni.
This article was published in:
Renewal Update No. 39, October 19, 2019
Article Link:
Vancouver Island North Actions to Defend the Right to Health Care from Birth to Death – Barbara Biley
