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Interior Health saves taxpayers' money with inadequate nurse replacement

A full-time nurse retired in May as co-ordinator of the IHA's Nursing Support Services program was replaced by a part-time nurse...

To the Editor:

Rejoice, taxpayers, and bow in gratitude to the Interior Health Authority and its master, the provincial government!

IH, you see, has just saved the taxpayers a bit of money — a pittance in the overall scheme of things, no doubt, but we taxpayers don’t turn up our noses at anything that eases the pressure on our pocketbooks, do we?

How was this small miracle achieved? Through a bit of luck, it seems. Here’s the story as reported by Sally Macdonald of the Cranbrook Daily Townsman.

In May, a nurse with 17 years’ experience and special pediatric training retired as co-ordinator of IH’s Nursing Support Services program for the East Kootenay — which, in this context, includes Creston.

Her job was to work with health nurses, through consultation and the provision of information, regarding the assessment and care of about 30 special-needs children in the East Kootenay.

It was a full-time position, and according to Patt Shuttleworth, chair of the East Kootenay region of the B.C. Nurses Union, full-time was barely enough to do the job properly.

So what does IH do when this nurse retires? Replace her with another experienced, full-time one, you say? Not on your life. The position has been reduced to a half-time one — and filled by a recently graduated nurse.

It evidently makes sense to IH. You see, in the West Kootenay the position has been half-time for a long time. And according to Linda Basran, community integration health services director of Interior Health (east), “So when we took a look at being equitable ... it was important that we put both sides equally.”

Now there’s logic for you. Shuttleworth and many others may rightly worry whether the East Kootenay’s special needs children are going to be adequately assessed in terms of their health-care and schooling needs. And, given the vulnerability of special needs kids, some of us may wonder why IH didn’t equalize the other way, by having full-time positions in both regions.

But what’s really important to IH, it seems, is that east and west be treated “equally” — at the lowest common denominator, of course — and, incidentally, that B.C’s taxpayers save a few pennies.

Peter Hepher

Creston