Town Hall to explain how VIHA’s cuts have hurt North Island patient care
For more than six years, Campbell River and Comox Valley doctors and other medical professionals have tried to stop the erosion of laboratory services performed on the North Island, but both the Vancouver Island Health Authority and the Ministry of Health have continued to allow the transfer of critical lab functions to Victoria area doctors.
“It’s time for the community to speak up – for the services that we were promised when the new North Island hospitals opened, for our doctors and lab staff, for all of us,” said Barbara Bailey, a spokesman for Citizens for Quality Health Care.
READ MORE: Our series on pathology services in the North Island
To get the BC healthy ministry’s attention, the citizens group has organized a Town Hall meeting from 2 pm to 4 pm at the Campbell River Sportsplex. They hope people will attend to show their support, share experiences and sign a petition that demands the return of onsite clinical pathologists’ services to the Campbell River Hospital laboratory.
Speakers at the Town Hall will include Dr. Chris Bellamy, one of the Comox Valley’s three General Pathologists who still do clinical pathology onsite at the Comox Valley Hospital. But VIHA (also known as Island Health) also wants to take all clinical pathologists’ services from the Comox Valley Hospital laboratory and move that work to the same group of Victoria doctors.
That happened to Dr. Aref Tabarsi, one of two General Pathologists in Campbell River.
After VIHA moved clinical pathologists’ services from the Campbell River hospital to Victoria, there has been a significant delay in test results, especially for urgent cases, which has had a negative impact on patient care and clinical outcomes.
It has also created a breakdown in working relations because hospital lab staff and local doctors can no longer consult with the pathologists on site to provide optimum services to patients.
“I will absolutely guarantee that this shift will result in the further erosion of technologists locally and will be bad for patient care in this area,” said Dr. Chris Bellamy, who has practiced general pathology in the Comox Valley for 30 years.
Despite letters of support for reinstating onsite clinical pathologists’ services to Campbell River laboratory technologists and assistants, as well as 70 North Island general practice physicians, have written letters detailing the problems centralization has caused for their work and for patient care, and expressing their support for reinstating onsite clinical pathologists’ services.
But the Vancouver Island Health Authority has so far dismissed their concerns.
VIHA has not responded to the laboratory staff or doctors. The Ministry of Health has not respond to the Campbell River City Council or the Comox Strathcona Regional Hospital Board, both of who have asked for the return clinical pathology services to the Campbell River Hospital.
“Come to the Town Hall on February 9. Learn from the senior pathologists at the Campbell River and Comox Valley Hospitals, lab staff and doctors in the community, share your own experiences.,” Bailey said.
For more information, call Citizens for Quality Health Care: 250-287-3096 or Council of Canadians Campbell River Chapter: 250-286-3019.
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I was a Registered Nurse for 50 years. In the old days we only had pathologists in major centres, everything was sent out. The wait times could be extremely long. Then, as more pathologists were trained more and more hospitals were able to have their own pathology departments. Drs could discuss results immediately and treatment commenced much sooner, with increasingly good results. Why would any intelligent person want to take medicine back 50 years? It would be a disastrous move and it must be stopped! The wait time for pathology reports are already increasing which can have very negative effects, especially for those with cancer and other life threatening diseases, and the stress and fear they are already experiencing. Pathologists in the major centres will have increasingly difficult workloads and the potential for delay in treatment will increase. Anyone with any common sense knows that going backwards in the medical field is a ludicrous proposition
Greed! The reason is deregulation and giving the contract to a private company. Simple. Follow the money. Who is VIHA giving the contracts to?
Follow the Money – it’s a contract that has been awarded to a company by VIHA executives. It has nothing to do with patient care.
It is a sad and potentially disastrous decision of the relocation of pathology services in the Campbell River community.It is encouraging to see a response of both communities , The Comox Valley and Campbell River.
It is however not surprising to see the gradual erosion of medical services in both communities. The division of medical services has weakened their position. The decision of building two small hospitals instead of a regional hospital with the potential of attracting new services and to maintain the existing ones was thrown away by the short vision exhibited by those whom fought against a one fully serviced regional hospital. Was not the Pathologist in Campbell River a fervent proponent of two cottage hospitals?
Make no mistake, this will eventually (and sooner than we think) affect Comox Valley residents as well.