To the editor:
Frankly, Interior Health’s performance has been a disappointment. In fact it has been disastrous. A classic case that getting bigger does not necessarily mean getting better service.
The size of Kelowna General Hospital has quadrupled in the past few years. We are told of all the advanced surgical interventions being introduced, we see money coming from all directions, spending on the new building downtown is colossal, MSP premium has increased for us dumb taxpayers, yet services, especially for an aging population, is incredibly getting poorer.
I have heard horror stories from people with severe limitation of their mobility who have been waiting for an eternity for knee and hip replacement. Cataract surgery has become a luxury. Forget complex eye surgery. We have highly qualified, at least one retina surgeon I know, who has more operating time in Kamloops than at Kelowna General Hospital.
Also, lack of services by Interior Health has been very beneficial and lucrative to private physicians and surgeons. I personally know of a young man who had to have private surgery on his knee and paid handsomely to keep his job on a cruise ship. Do we, or don’t we have enough orthopaedic surgeons in Kelowna? If yes, why not enough operating room availability?
It is not unthinkable these days to think we probably have too many fat cats at Interior Health. We may also have a lousy and not so highly qualified board of directors.
I would like our local MLAs to explain, and/or defend the lousy performance of Interior Health. On the other hand, the absolutely brilliant voters just gave Madame Christy Clark and her cohorts five more years. Here in beautiful Okanagan Valley voters treat Clark like a goddess, when her own riding dumped her. Doesn’t that tell you something?
We can go ahead and knock our brain to death on the wall for the next four years.
Mo Rajabally,
Kelowna