Merritt’s ultrasound service at the Nicola Valley Health Care Centre is gone. Big surprise.

I’m sure the powers that be that advertised the part-time position to carry out the service knew full well the difficulty in getting part-time help. So, was the entire thing a big charade to make it look like Interior Health tried to do something before it discontinued the service, or was it really their only option that the budget would allow?

I find it hard to believe that the Ministry of Health couldn’t pull some strings to make funds available for a full-time specialist.
Interior Health Authority director Dan Fitch said the equipment was not getting used enough at the Nicola Valley Health Care Hospital due to a lack of qualified specialists, or sonographers, to run the machine.

According to Fitch, the IHA tried to recruit both full and part-time specialists for some time, but just how hard did they try? Was the positioned advertised for full-time before 2001 and then changed to part-time there afterwards?

Perhaps some of the complaints around town I’m hearing are correct and the IHAs latest move is just a self-defeating action being carried out with the intent to systematically erode away what’s left of the fragile health care system in this country.

Having lived in Alberta during the Ralph Klein days, I remember what the state of the health care system was like leading up to the implementation of privatization. It now echoes throughout the Nicola Valley and several other rural places in B.C. that have gotten an unfair deal at the hands of the health authorities—shutting down Lytton’s emergency ward to name one.

In April, the Merritt News first broke the story, “Health care dream comes true for Merritt couple.” It was about the late Doreen and Cor Polmans and their wishes to allow patients to remain in Merritt to receive medical treatment. They donated over $200,000 in medical equipment to the Nicola Valley Health Care Centre; however, it was donated with the understanding that the equipment was not to leave Merritt.

In total, a GlideScope, portable ultrasound unit, portable ventilator, a rhinolaryngoscope, and an electrocautery unit were donated by this generous couple. And now the IHA appears to have made vain this kind act.

The Nicola Valley Health Care Hospital says that only a static unit went to Kamloops and the Polmans’ equipment remains in town. But don’t worry, all of that expensive equipment can still be used in emergency situations.

While I admire those who attempt to devise solutions to our health care dilemma—Bill Vander Zalm has proposed a $20 user fee for every doctor visit—perhaps we should consider that a solution may only lie at the level where the health care coup d'état is taking place—in Victoria, in Ottawa, or behind the closed doors of a meeting of some think-tank that believes it has the right to impose policies that will affect the majority.
—John O'Connor