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Cuts proposed in leaked documents ‘detrimental to patient health’

Health authority charged with eliminating $136 million debt in 12 months It's not official that the new health care system will reduce hospital beds, slash community programs and introduce user fees for certain services.

Health authority charged with eliminating $136 million debt in 12 months

It's not official that the new health care system will reduce hospital beds, slash community programs and introduce user fees for certain services.

But these things were all part of leaked documents, originally drafted by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, and made public by the BCNU this week.

While nothing in the documents points to direct impacts on the Whistler Health Care Centre, the changes are predicted to be widespread and may have indirect consequences throughout the entire health authority.

"When you're dealing with this sort of change, the system is going to be very, very different," said Clay Adams, communications director at the VCHA.

"And people need to understand that."

But Adams said the leaked documents need to be treated with caution because they are only working documents and no cutbacks or changes have been implemented yet.

Representatives of the BCNU on the other hand, said the documents are cause for grave concern, even if they are only working documents.

The proposals outlined in them are a sign of impending things to come, they said.

"(These changes) are detrimental to patient health, detrimental to patient care and, my own personal prediction is that it is going to cost more in the end," said Sandy Bauer, BCNU steward at the Squamish General Hospital.

Proposed changes in the leaked North Shore document, which is part of the VCHA, include:

• closing 367 intermediate and extended care beds (to be replaced by 120 "assisted living" beds, with a much reduced level of care);

• cutting 25 per cent of Lions Gate Hospital's palliative care beds;

• closing three cardiac care unit beds at Lions Gate Hospital;

• closing six beds at the Powell River Hospital in 2002/2003;

• closing the Olive Devaud Residence in Powell River.

"I think that it is so horrendously short-sighted," said Bauer, of the bed closures.

She said most of these beds are currently occupied and in fact there are waiting lists for most of them.

BCNU projects there will be over crowding in the hospitals as a result of the bed cuts and waiting lists will grow even longer.

"Most of these folks are going to end up in the ER rooms and taking up acute care beds," said Bauer.

"It's certainly going to overwhelm the remaining acute care system, like the nurses and others in the system."

This means increased workloads and stress levels in acute care – a system which is already strained at the moment.

"We're already losing 50 per cent of nurses within the first five years," said Patt Shuttleworth, BCNU vice president.

"This doesn't make (nursing) an attractive profession."

While there is no overnight facility at the health care centre in Whistler, many patients are taken from there to Lions Gate for care.

"We're not anticipating that any of the health care facilities, Pemberton Health Care Centre, the Whistler Health Care Centre and the Squamish General Hospital, are going to be impacted in our ability to transfer patients," said Gloria Healy, manager of acute care services for the Sea to Sky Corridor.

But if there are fewer beds at Lions Gate and longer waiting lists, patients from Whistler may be spending more time in the ambulance waiting to be off-loaded at the other end, said Shuttleworth.

"(Bed closures) mean overcrowding in all of the areas," she said.

Beds aren't the only things which are being slashed, according to the documents. Other cuts include:

• decreasing home care and mental health support services;

• gutting mental health programs;

• cutting School Health Nursing programs.

Introducing user fees for certain services are also on the table for discussion.

In the working document for Richmond, leaked by the BCNU on Wednesday, there was a plan outlined to close the hospital's emergency treatment area and re-open it as an "Urgecentre."

This centre would provide "revenue generation opportunities."

The BCNU says this is a sign that the Liberals are moving towards a privatized system.

Shuttleworth calls user fees an attack on the poor people and introducing these user fees will only create more inequities within the system.

"It's almost as though it's an attack on the poor people in the province," she said.

People in the lower socio-economic groups will feel these inequities even more because they tend to use the health system more regularly than do people in higher income brackets.

In each of the VCHA's documents there are identified risks with the redesign strategy.

The key risk they are concerned about in introducing user fees is that many patients could lose access to care because they can't afford it.

"We believe these and other schemes to cut health care services to the people of Richmond constitute a clear and blatant violation of the Canada Health Act," said BCNU president Debra McPherson.

But the fact still remains that when the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority amalgamated in December it inherited a $136 million debt.

"(The system) is not sustainable right now," said Adams. "We need to get that under control."

The CEOs of the five health authorities have been given a clear mandate from the government to rid their authorities of their debts.

The CEOs will be awarded bonuses of up to 10 per cent of their salaries if they put cost cutting measures in place and eliminate deficits.

If they do not accomplish this they will give up 10 per cent of their salaries.

"I shouldn't think they need any incentive beyond their salaries to do their jobs appropriately," said Bauer.

The countdown to get rid of the debt starts on April 1, the beginning of the fiscal year for the VCHA.

The CEO of the VCHA, Keith Purchase, will be expected to eliminate the $136 million debt in the next 12 months.

The BCNU expect some of the cutbacks and changes to be announced in the coming month.