The Impact of Growth on Health Services

[John Zeger]

In a front page story on Wed., July 26,2006 the Kelowna Daily Courier reported that the Kelowna General Hospital will be cutting back on elective surgeries in order to free up operating rooms and beds for emergency cases. This will result in longer waiting times for patients for such elective procedures such as hip or knee replacements for which there are already pretty long wait times as is.

In an open letter to the editor of the Okanagan on Sat., July 29, 2006 Svenn Mikkelson of Oyama, a recent patient at the KGH, writes some opinions that he had sent to the mayors of many Okanagan cities. Mr. Mikkelsen writes "I know I am not telling you anything you do not already know. I repeat this because it is you and your respective councils who continue to approve mega-developments in your communities. You require exhaustive reports regarding provision of water, sewage treatment, control of run-off and all other services.... Yet, nowhere in your approval process do you ever consider who will care for the health needs of these new arrivals. ... Many of these developments are designed to cater to seniors, with their concomitantly increased health needs. What about them? You have a moral and fiduciary responsibility to your exisiting constituents to ensure that their interests are protected before putting any more strain on an already overtaxed system.... At the moment, the Okanagan is a fabulous place to live , but a dangerous place to be ill."

As I have written elsewhere the present crisis at the Kelowna General Hospital has been caused by demand pressures i.e., too many people straining limited resources. This crisis has developed to its present alarming level because of the negligence of our city planners and politicians in both allowing too much growth and totally ignoring the issue of health services when planning for that growth. How much longer will the voting public tolerate this sort of mismanagement?

[John Zeger]

Letter to the editor (Kelowna Daily Courier, March 14, 2007)

The March 14th edition of the Daily Courier provided a pointed display of some of the ironies that have been created by the rapid growth of Kelowna. The headline article of that day reported that the 2006 census pegged the city’s population at 106,707 making it the fastest growing city within the fastest growing region of B.C. The story mentioned that Kelowna had become an attractive retirement location for many such as the Botners, a couple who had recently moved from Ontario in part because they thought that the services here were good. Ironically, on the front page was another article about John Shea who after undergoing radiation treatment at the Kelowna General Hospital spent four days in a storage closet there because of a shortage of beds.

In the Courier article Mayor Sharon Shepherd spoke about the conundrum of growth in that it brings economic benefits but offers challenges in terms of the pressures that it places on the city’s infrastructure and environment. It is the area of an over-burdened infrastructure where Kelowna’s rapid rate of growth is perhaps taking its biggest toll as exemplified by the crisis caused by the increased demand for beds at the KGH, a situation that makes the city’s chronic traffic congestion problem seem like a minor inconvenience.

Perhaps our mayor can learn from what other cities in Canada such as Halifax have done in response to infrastructures that seriously lagged rapid local growth and impose a moratorium on new development until the city’s infrastructure has time to catch up. Another suggestion would be for the city to pass an adequate public facilities bylaw whereby new development proposals would be approved only if sufficient infrastructure such as roads, police, fire, and emergency medical services existed to support them. Again, other communities in North America have such bylaws. These are just a couple of suggestions for our mayor who during her election campaign said that Kelowna was not ready for rapid growth and that the city needed to catch its breath.

[John Zeger]

In a letter to the editor to the Kelowna Daily Courier on May 8, 2007, Stan Miller, commenting on the the shortage of hospital beds, writes:

"The city should freeze all residential construction until the hospital has been upgrade[d] to handle the current population. All potential buyers of real estate should be advised that, should they require hospital services, they may not be at an expectable level due to over crowding. All tourist information and advertisements should contain a warning that hospital service may not be available."