Dr. Charles Helm says being asked to serve as medical advisor for the District of Tumbler Ridge is a great privilege. “This puts the community into crisis,” he says of Northern Health’s decision to no longer offer emergency room services in Tumbler Ridge on evenings and weekends. “I was approached by the mayor and Council to advise them on medical things, especially to do with the emergency room after hours. It’s a huge honour, a huge privilege. There are other things I could be doing with my time, but this is the most important thing there is, right now. This is priority one. And I’m just really grateful to be able to help do my bit to help Tumbler Ridge in its hour of need.”
He says he’s not sure what form his help would take, be it just offering advice or actively negotiating on behalf of the district, but he says this would only formalize what he’s already been doing. “There has been an open house through Northern health, a round table through Northern Health, three open houses by MLA Larry Neufeld, and at all of those, I’ve been working with the mayor and council. I haven’t been reticent by expressing my opinion. So this is really just formalizing that process.”
Helm says he is heartened by the amount of outcry and support he has seen from the community. “I believe it’s not a matter of are we going to get our after hours emergency room back? The question is ‘when is it going to happen and how long is it going to take?’ That’s the issue for me. Because we have right on our side. And in the end, we’re going to get there. It could be longer than any of us want. It’s already been almost at a month. It’s putting lives at risk, and I’m very unhappy about it. What I want to see from Northern Health is urgency. They need to approach this with the urgency it deserves.”
Helm says you can’t compare today to 20 years ago. “We can’t be nostalgic for the past because things were different then. But there are principles which still apply. And one of those principles is that you need people of good will when it comes to health care in the north and in Tumbler Ridge. People of good will and whether that’s local or elected officials or Northern Health, these people of good will need to come together and to be innovative and to find solutions. I have no doubt if we have that mindset here from all parties we’ll solve this quickly.”
He says this is not the first time he’s faced this. “ I can think of three times in the past 20 years. Every time, it looked good, all came together, we’re innovative, and we managed to sort it out, and this one should be no different.”
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
