And the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round!

What’s the hardest job in Prince Rupert these days? Well probably by a country mile (or two or six hundred) it’s the folks that are trying to sell the local population on the logistical joys of bus transportation to and from local medical facilities along the Highway 16 corridor.

Northern Health is having a hard time spinning the story that the new transportation option being offered up is going to result in quality health care. From the locals who toured the new buses, to the folks on the Charlottes who just saw their visiting specialists visits reduced in number, the whole concept of quality health care in the Northwest seems to be taking a bit of a hit of late. Combine those issues with the much reported staffing problems at Prince Rupert Regional Hospital and well, the selling isn’t so great as they would say.

They may wish to take heed of a comment from an exasperated president of the Prince Rupert Senior’s Center who asked rather plaintively “What are we going to do with Northern Health?” Indeed, when pretty well the whole community thinks that things are pretty bad and heading towards worse, it may be time to re-think many of your policies.

Below are two articles from local media that kind of explain the rock and a hard place that the folks at Northern Health are finding themselves in. Try as they might to paint a pretty picture out of the current situation, few it seems are willing to take their offerings at face value of late. The Daily News has details on the reaction to the bus transportation option and the Queen Charlotte Islands Observer tackles the issue of cutbacks to the visiting specialists there.

BUS NOT UP TO SNUFF, SAY CRITICS
By James Vassallo
The Daily News
Thursday, July 6, 2006
Page One

The recent tour of Northern Health’s new buses has left local seniors and politicians feeling skeptical at best and outright deceived at worst.

“I went on the bus, I was totally flabbergasted,” said Marion Weir, Senior’s Centre president. “It’s a coach like Greyhound… the seats, there’s no leg room, there is this lift for the wheelchair and the bathroom opens up to let a wheelchair in it, but there’s no place for it unless they take seats out.”

Weir’s shock came from an absence of beds and other amenities that seniors believed they would get on the ‘luxury coach’. Instead they’ve received a standard bus, she said.

“They never said a word to me (about why it was standard),” said Weir. “I said ‘where’s the beds, there will be people not well enough to sit up,” and the guy there said. ‘We’re not going to take those kind of people.”

Her feelings about the Health Connections Program soured further when NH staff seemed unresponsive to suggestions.

“There was also at least seven Northern Health employees who got on that bus while I was there and every one tried to tell them how angry they were with Northern Health and that they just weren’t listening at all,” she said, adding that the Connections program also never met with local seniors.

While Weir believes some people will benefit from the $4 million program, and that the cost -$20 to Terrace, $40 to Prince George and $80 to Vancouver, all return – was very reasonable, she doubts the buses will ever be highly utilized.

“What are we going to do with Northern Health?” she said. “Everyone is upset at them, they’re just blindly going ahead and they turn everything you say to them into something happy.

“It’s unreal.”

After riding aboard the bus, Port Edward Mayor Dave MacDonald’s message to NH is simple: “prove me wrong.”

“Citizens are afraid this is the start of service up the highway instead of in our own hospital. I just don’t know if this is the right way to go,” he said. “I feel that we’re taking service away from the community and they keep telling me that’s not what they’re planning on doing.

“I always say prove me wrong and show me the service is just for helping people get back and forth between communities – I can live with that. But it’s that old saying; the proof will be in the pudding down the road.”

North Coast MLA Gary Coons, who also boarded the bus, said it was another example of the cost of the province’s regionalization scheme.

“The bus is not going to meet the needs of people in the Northwest,” he said. It’s not getting health care when and where you need it.

“The shorter shuttles from Prince Rupert to Terrace might work, but for people who are not in the best of health to be traveling to Prince George and beyond? I just think this another kick in the stomach for them.”

Coons invited Minister of Health George Abbot, who accepted the offer publicly while in the legislature, to ride the bus with him to Prince George and back. The North Coast NLA said he hoped the trip would be taken this summer.

“Hopefully we can spend some time together on the 20-24 hour return trip,” said Coons. “We’d have an opportunity to share a lot of good stories.”

SPECIALIST VISITS TO THE ISLANDS REDUCED
By Heather Ramsay
Queen Charlottes Island Observer
Friday, July 8, 2006

Just as a touted health-related travel service starts, Northern Health has seen fit to cut visits by medical specialists to the islands by one third.

A new Northern Health Connections bus will be providing trips between communities for patients who need to go to larger centres for specialized health care. The highway coaches will have the first on-board wheelchair accessible washrooms in North America. But at the same time, the 2006/07 budget for visiting specialists on the islands has been cut from 40 visits to 27. These specialists cover such fields as psychiatry, general surgery, urology, obstetrics and gynaecology.

MLA Gary Coons thinks the timing is horrendous.

“There are less specialists coming to town because you can just hop on the bus,” he says. “What a waste of time and money.”

The New Democrat Health critic Adrian Dix says although demand for health care continues to grow, the BC government is obviously not meeting the needs of rural and remote patients.
He says an internal document shows the Minister of Health George Abbott is only planning to fund 65 per cent of requested visits to rural communities in the northwest under a province-wide Northern And Isolation Travel Assistance Program which allows physicians and specialists to visit remote communities.

Chief of staff at the Queen Charlotte Islands General Hospital Dr. Tracy Morton says visiting specialist services are vital to islanders who are financially disadvantaged or have disabilities that prevent them from travelling.

He wrote a letter to Northern Health's regional chief operating officer Suzanne Johnston saying he would bring the matter to the attention of the media and local politicians. Queen Charlotte council discussed the letter at their July 4 meeting and agreed to send their own letter to the Premier and other appropriate members of the government and Northern Health on the topic.

“This strikes a blow at the most vulnerable layers of society,” said councillor Greg Martin.
Sean Hardiman, the regional manager of the Northern Health Connections program says the new bus and the cuts to specialists visits are not connected.

“The purpose of Connections is not to reduce existing services in the north,” he says. As for the limitations of the bus service, which runs from Prince Rupert to Terrace and on to Prince George and Vancouver, to islanders, he says Northern Health is looking for a solution.

He has looked into the concept of low cost airfares, but has received no interest from airlines to provide service options. He says the funding, a boost of $4 million to the Northern Health operating budget, works out to about $13 per person, not enough to be used for airfares.

He says the government's travel assistance program covers the ferry fare for medical purposes and once the ferry schedule is finalized, he will work to co-ordinate the bus schedules.
Dr. Jamie Chrones says the bus doesn't really help islanders at all. “It doesn't address the issue of getting across the water,” he says.

He says people often need to visit a specialist more than once and feel it is too much of a hardship to go off-island to access these services. This will result in people not getting the care they need, he says.

He says most specialist services were already overbooked before the cuts, but there are some specialists, like an ear, nose and throat doctor, that the medical team has not been able to recruit for many years while maintaining a budget allocation for one. “If we are not using the funding for some, why not let us use the funding for the specialists we do use?” He sees this as a short-term solution. “The permanent solution is don't cut anything. We are so remote. We don't have the option of driving three hours down the highway.”