At the rally on Sept 26, Stu Bell got up and spoke. I figured I would quote what he said here in its entirety. There’s a few bits and bobs at the end of this editorial.
<Stu>Here we are. A year later.
We were told this was TEMPORARY.
After an initial few months of silence, we were given prompts of “we’re working on it” with the vague outlines of progress. More posts with carrots on strings—trying to justify how this could take a while to achieve.
But it didn’t take a while to tear down.
It came without notice and shocked us all. A decision made overnight. Without warning or consent. Northern Health exercising the ‘Authority’ in ‘Heath Authority.’
Last year I questioned why Northern Health’s board had given themselves a 30 percent raise over the last two years while divergences across the region were on a steady incline.
A few short weeks later Premier David Eby told Northern Health’s upper management no more raises, that funds needed to be directed to front line workers.
Let that marinate for a moment. While Northern Health’s turnover grew, as emergency rooms closed and divergences increased, the board continued to give themselves raises, until our Premier told them to stop. That shows where their interest lays—they had to be told to stop lining their wallets with our cash while failing to deliver.
Their board is trying to claim that their raises (bring their total gross to sometimes over $500,000 a year), were to keep up with industry standards. But is that fair when you routinely fail to deliver the industry standard of care? The quality of their work is poor at best, as we’ve seen a rapid decline of coverage, and sharp increase of turn overs. Making $500k a year while the average pay for front line workers is at $112k is disgusting. This is public health care, not a privatized business. Raises in pay should reflect performance, and its exactly why they should be getting a pay cut.
This kicked off last year as we had yet another doctor quit. When it comes to jobs, I personally have been on both sides in this type of relationship – I have been an employee and I have been a business owner. One thing is for certain. If you have a problem with one employee, then its problem with the individual. If you have a problem with multiple employees, to the point where turn over continues to grow, then you have a problem with management!
After the closure, we didn’t just complain, we didn’t just march and protest, didn’t just sign petitions—we offered solutions. We tried to work with Northern Health to come up with solutions. We offered plans to bring in virtual health care that could be set up within a week, to relieve pressure on remaining staff. We suggested ideas where the town would create incentives for doctors to move here.
How many people here knew we lost another doctor over the summer, when they finally said “enough is enough!” They finally had enough of their terrible employer having them spend less than one week per month taking appointments from their patients, and instead sending them all over the Peace Region to cover shifts in different hospitals.
Several times now, I have lost a family doctor and Northern Health can’t even have the decency to notify us. Every time I go into that office they ask me to confirm my phone number, and my current address. Yet every time I lose a family doctor, I have to find out through the grapevine. No official notice. I’ve been taking my kids to specialists, filling out paperwork for the school, and putting the name of a family doctor to contact for months, before finding out from my neighbor that my family doctor doesn’t work here anymore.
This has me questioning, how did we even get here? How did health authorities become authorities? Every candidate at every level during this election cycle should be talking about this. It’s becoming clear that somewhere between incompetent and nefarious is where Northern Health’s leadership is, and we need an overhaul from the inside out to fix this.
After a whole year of carrot dangling, and gaslighting. During the worst year of most of our lives—for some of which Northern Health shares blame—our health authority still treats us with disregard and disrespect. If we aren’t getting what we pay for, then we shouldn’t be paying for it! I say NOT ANOTHER YEAR, NOT ANOTHER MONTH, NOT ANOTHER WEEK, NOT ANOTHER DAY!
Full-time emergency hours NOW! </Stu>
There’s more news happening than can be contained in eight pages. This is not a new problem, but this fortnight seems particularly egregious. In the last two weeks, we’ve learned that the District was investigating having fireworks for Halloween, but after consultation with the community, has decided against it.
The province declared a snap election. At press time, there were still no Peace River South candidates that had filed papers with Election BC, though to be fair, less that 25 candidates have got their paperwork in across the province, but there are Larry Neufeld signs up in Dawson, so….
Mother Jones was able to get access to the shooter’s ChatGPT transcripts, and it is harrowing reading.
SD59 provided an update, saying they have a potential location for the school. There is no word on where, other than “middle bench.”
There was a party in the park by the museum.
There was a Health & Wellness Fair this weekend, along with a grand opening for the new mountain bike trails. FireSmart was out chipping on September 22. The Forever Young Society held a garage sale. Maya had a birthday and much, much more. I could have written shorter stories about the things I covered here, but these are important issues, and I’d rather be thorough. Unfortunately, I can’t always get all the stories into the paper.
That’s why I do Today in Tumbler, every weekday at 8:30 on Facebook (facebook.com/tumblerridgelines/) and YouTube (youtube.com/@Tumblerridgelines), as well as post extra stories (and photos) here on tumblerridgelines.com.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
