FILE PHOTO: Nurses rally outside UHNBC, during a May protest on dangerously short staffing while hospital is overcrowded (Photo by Will Peters, My PG Now)
“I will almost certainly come north this summer to assess UHNBC.”
Those were the words of BC Health Minister Adrian Dix during a May interview with MyPGNow.com regarding the severe issues being faced at PG’s University Hospital.
UHNBC is still facing a massive nursing staffing shortage and serious patient overcrowding in the hospital, to the point where they are regularly running up to 125% capacity.
Fast forward to now and still no sign of Dix, Prince George-Valemount MLA Shirley Bond is growing frustrated by the lack of action shown by his ministry to fix the problem.
“I think there is no doubt we are in the middle of a health care crisis across the province. As I travel throughout my constituency regularly up and down the Highway 16 corridor, people talk to us about the fact they are waiting longer to get procedures done and many of them don’t have family doctors.”
“You know, I asked that Minister Dix come up and sit down with people who have been impacted by the challenges in Northern Health and across the province with patients, nurses, and physicians who have good ideas and just want to be heard.”
“The minister has certainly not found the time to do that – we are headed back into the legislature very shortly for the fall session and I will be continuing to remind him about the challenges we face not only here, but right across the province,” added Bond.
