Victorian Community Health Centre negotiating team meets with IHA Monday
By Bruce Fuhr
Kaslo Mayor Greg Lay and Regional District of Central Kootenay Director Andy Shadrack, Electoral Area D, have scheduled meetings Monday in Victoria with Interior Health Authority CEO Dr Robert Halpenny in efforts to save emergency room hours at the Victorian Community Health Centre.
“I hope to get an agreement that (IHA) is going to negotiate with us,” Shadrack said from Victoria Sunday.
Last week the IHA announced a reduction the ER hours at the Victorian Community Health Centre from 24 hours a day, seven days a week to Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The ER, which serves 2,500 people in Kaslo and the surrounding areas, is scheduled to begin new hours as of November 1, 2012.
Shadrack and Lay are part of a seven-member negotiating team established to work with IHA to find a way to keep the emergency room open more than 40 hours a week.
But the group needs more time than the six weeks they have between now and when the new service plan begins.
“We feel (IHA) has got their facts wrong,” Shadrack explained. “The IHA has made the claim that they can’t find any doctors to work on call and we believe that is incorrect.”
Shadrack said the Kaslo Mayor has an 8 a.m. meeting with the IHA while he is scheduled to meet with the board at 2:30 p.m.
The group is hosting a 3 p.m. press conference in the Fairmont Empress Hotel to explain to the public the outcome of the meetings.
Both Lay and Shadrack are in the provincial capital as part of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) 2012 Convention that opened Monday. The annual convention ends Friday.
The UBCM is an organization that has served and represented the interests of local governments in BC since 1905.
