by Alex Rinfret--The Northern Health Authority announced that the Masset hospital will get money to hire an extra nurse, just one day after north-end residents submitted a petition demanding better medical care.
"The Northern Health Authority immediately gave us the sixth RN position we were waiting for," said Dr. Peter Rempel, who helped spearhead the petition drive, and who met with health authority officials, MLA Bill Belsey, and local politicians last Wednesday to discuss the situation. "And they've agreed to work with Masset to improve the hospital."
North-end residents took up the hospital cause enthusiastically once they became aware of its precarious state, Dr. Rempel said. By Friday, 1,005 adults from Masset, Old Massett and Port Clements had signed the "Save Our Hospital" petition demanding that the provincial government improve services.
"It was incredible," Dr. Rempel said. "We collected signatures from a very large part of the adult population."
Mr. Belsey, the local MLA, said the petition will definitely have an impact in Victoria.
"I will take that and present it to the House," he said. "Yes, petitions do make a difference, letters to your MLA make a difference, and letters to the Minister of Health make a difference."
Mr. Belsey said he decided to tour both hospitals on the islands after speaking to Masset mayor Barry Pages. What he saw shocked him.
"I never dreamed it was in the state it was in," he said, adding that he was especially surprised by the cramped quarters in the Queen Charlotte hospital, the way the physiotherapy room was filled with storage, and the tiny size of the doctors' office in Masset.
"And the X-ray machine in Masset, I don't know if it's more of a safety hazard or a diagnostic tool, that's the condition it's in," Mr. Belsey said. "These are glaring issues and they will have to be dealt with."
Mr. Belsey said a new fiscal year is coming in Victoria, and he wants to make sure the islands hospitals get the front of the line for operating and capital dollars. But he added that the provincial government has put $1.1-billion of new funding into health care, and that money isn't always the solution.
"It's very tough for people to understand. They say there's cuts, and we say there's hundreds of millions going in," he said. "When do you stop pouring the money in?"
The pharmacy continues to be one of the biggest problems for the Masset hospital. The Northern Health Authority closed it in December because it couldn't find a pharmacist to work there, and prescriptions are now delivered to Masset once a day from the Queen Charlotte pharmacy. The new system has created more work for the doctors and nurses.
Mr. Belsey said the health authority is committed to finding a pharmacist, and suggested there may be other solutions, such as partnering with the Co-op to open a pharmacy in the store, or finding extra money to increase the pharmacist salary.
North-end residents have been worried for several years about the possibility that the province will build a single hospital near Skidegate to serve the entire islands population. At last week's meeting, Mr. Belsey said that proposal is definitely off the books, Dr. Rempel said, and that the Masset hospital will not be closing.
The petition is just the beginning, Dr. Rempel added. North-end residents have now formed a "health watch" committee dedicated to staying aware of conditions at the hospital and doing what they can to improve them.
"We got a lot of people's attention," he said. "The community has now taken ownership of the hospital."