Earlier this year I wrote that “we” – the collective we – should reconsider the decision to build two new hospitals.
My opinion was based on my own experience in hospital combined with the opinions of the many health care professionals I spoke with; the vast majority of whom said one hospital would be better.
The column brought a lot of response from people on both sides of the fence.
All had valid views, but it was soon afterwards when I heard the “writing was on the wall” and there was no going back on the two-hospital option.
Well, so be it, the decision has been made and two hospitals we shall have.
Let me say this first, this was a political decision that will not result in better or improved health care for residents on the upper half of Vancouver Island.
How can they possibly provide better health care when you split up services, combined with competing fundraisers who try to out-do each other in getting the latest and greatest, and quite expensive, medical equipment for each hospital?
Yup, the tug-o-war between Campbell River and the Comox Valley never seems to cease.
This was a political decision because people wanted the status quo no matter if it cost them an extra hundred million dollars or more to build two new hospitals.
It makes me wonder why taxpayers in Campbell River are quibbling over an extra $136 or so a year for municipal taxes when they’re going to be gouged for decades on repaying the hospital debt?
And you might want to consider that hospital bill the next time you’re trying to find a parking spot anywhere near the Campbell River Hospital.
Trust me, you’ll have plenty of time to think it over as you endlessly circle the merry-go-round of traffic that will only get worse once construction starts on the new hospital.
It’s so bad now that one day as I waited for an elderly lady to pull out, the line-up of traffic started passing me on the right and cutting off her so that she couldn’t pull out.
When I finally tooted my horn at one passer, the female driver actually gave me the finger. The woman was in her 60s!
I think a live video camera and website should be set up so we can watch the fistfights that will inevitably ensue.
However, I’m ranting. What’s done is done and I’m sure the new hospitals will be very clean and you will find that parking space provided you have the exact change.
For the sake of the patients, I can only hope the food is better at the new hospital too.
One last point I’ll pass along, based on my own experience: Don’t ever get sick.