Citizens For Quality Health Care is concerned about the attempts of some local municipal election candidates to resurrect the 2006 VIHA proposal of ONE ‘regional’ hospital on the North Island. This plan would have eliminated an acute care hospital and left Campbell River with little more than a clinic, replacing the Campbell River hospital and St. Joseph’s with one hospital at Dove Creek Rd. and the inland highway, inconveniencing 100% of the people in both communities as well as the entire North Island population from Qualicum to Port Hardy.
Over 19,000 people signed a petition which was presented to the legislature in November of 2007, demanding that the government and VIHA “ensure that fully functional acute care hospitals are maintained in the Comox Valley and Campbell River, that VIHA provide adequate funds to upgrade and expand our local hospitals, and that the hospitals remain publicly funded and care publicly delivered.” Many actions were taken from 2006 to 2008 to give voice to concerns about the ONE ‘regional’ hospital plan, including public forums in both Courtenay and Campbell River, delegations to VIHA and to the legislature, letters to the newspapers and to VIHA.

In January 2009 VIHA announced that it had come up with a new plan to build two new hospitals, one in Campbell River at the site of the current hospital, and one in the Comox Valley at a new site, not the present St. Joseph’s Hospital site. The VIHA announcement included the commitment to maintain all the services currently provided in Campbell River as well as to provide ‘regional beds’ and services at the new hospital in the Comox Valley.

Even before the original ONE ‘regional’ hospital plan was announced in 2006 there were opportunist appeals from some individuals in both communities to argue that if there were one hospital it should be in their community and that the other should be deprived, a divide and conquer tactic that appealed to some media and some politicians. Citizens For Quality Health Care was established for the purpose of bringing together all the residents of the North Island to ensure that nothing was lost and that hospital care would be enhanced and expanded.

The VIHA plan for two hospitals, while not perfect, is more appropriate for the North Island with its scattered population and two main population centres.

Attempts to resurrect the ONE ‘regional’ hospital - in the Comox Valley - is ill-advised political opportunism that can only cause further harm and delay. The acute care services that VIHA has outlined for the North Island in the ‘two hospital’ plan are virtually the same as those outlined in the ONE ‘regional’ hospital plan.

We urge the politicians to pay attention to the real problems and the voters to reject the calls to re-open this divisive and unproductive debate.

To contact Citizens for Quality Health Care: 250-338-4067 or 250-287-3096