Dear Mz. Macdiarmid:
Well now, it looks as though some progress is being attempted now doesn’t it? To bring in the brilliant minds of UBC Okanagan to help solve our doctor crisis would appear to be a positive step. Yet we know appearances can be deceiving though, don’t we?
Some thought your personal visit to this community would produce more than the blithering gibberish from those of Interior Health Authority.
It didn’t, in fact it seemed to embolden them further the minute you went on your merry way. We were left (and still are) at the mercy of that bureaucratic monstrosity.
Nine months Mz. Macdiarmid, that’s a long time to plan for daytime accidents only, wouldn’t you agree? A mishap or illness itinerary is a tough thing to map out on anyone’s best day, let alone during a bleeding panic or a heart attack.
Children at risk, four nights a week, thanks to you. Seniors too, by the way, along with 24/7 workers at a mill & mine and the rest of the town’s population & outlying areas.
We don’t need outsiders coming here to tell us what we need. It was clear before they arrived and reiterated in the end, our needs are 24/7 E.R. and doctors.
What a monumental surprise! Why is it that everyone can agree except those with the ability to actually fix the situation? Why is it that the health minister can have absolutely no say in this matter? How is it that your minions are more powerful than you?
Inquiring minds would like to hear the real answers to these and other questions. Perhaps when you are not quite so busy you could take just a little bit of time to answer those questions. Better still, why not come back and see for yourself what has transpired since your last visit. Consider it the same as telling your teenager to clean up their room by the end of the week, and seeing a potential landfill site where that bedroom used to be. Some of our rooms that used to hold beds & patients now resemble those neglected, cluttered nests.
Back when we were fighting against the idea of coal bed methane, the risk of water being far too great, we told people without water we’re done in seven days.
Without a hospital our town may take seven years but it will most likely wither and die just the same.
So again Mz. Macdiarmid, thank you for that grim sentence, without your decisions we may have lived a healthy happy existence. Imagine that, right now imagination is a far better realm than the sad reality we have.
Sincerely, Darrel Dobie
Citizen@risk in Princeton