In February, I had to make a weekend emergency trip to Mexico and back to bring home an ailing family member who was critically ill.
And it’s my subsequent experience with our health care system that I’m going to talk about today.
My relative’s first encounter with the UNBC Hospital, weighing only 85 pounds and having nearly passed away just a few days prior, was to go 17 hours without any food or pain medication.
When I asked her primary doctor if she could get something to eat and why a 76-year-old in such dire need of nutrition should go such a long time without eating, the doctor simply replied “it takes a while to get on the cafeteria list here” and walked away.
This was day one in the Prince George Hospital. I cringe to think how that day could have been even worse had I not been there advocating for my family member.
In the three weeks that followed the nurses and doctors saved her life. And I will be forever grateful for that. But they did it in the most inefficient and costly way possible.
The constant lack of communication between doctors and nurses, and other staff, and the sheer waste of medical supplies, was absolutely shocking.
I kept asking, “What is the policy here, what is the protocol?” … and not once did I receive an answer… because it appears there are no systems in place and the wheel is reinvented on a daily basis.
And a labour shortage is no excuse – in fact, that makes it even more crucial that you operate efficiently – so you can get the most out of the staff that you do have and reduce their stress at the same time.
And it isn’t just here in the North. Health care staff complain it is much the same everywhere.
If you ran a business like this, you would go broke by the end of the week. If you ran a classroom like this, you would have the principal and parents bearing down on you hard by Friday afternoon.
And if you ran a healthcare system like this, you would be hemorrhaging money and staff, because working in such a backwards and inefficient system would make anyone want to quit as soon as possible.
If Health Minister Adrian Dix thinks this is sustainable, he is wrong. If he thinks this is acceptable, he is wrong. And if he doesn’t know that this is happening in our hospitals, then he should resign immediately.
There’s a reason that other provinces are doing more with less: quite simply they are much better managed.
Editors note: The views expressed in this column do not necessarily represent the views of Pattison Media.
