Distribution of health care dollars

I love living on the Island. It is so beautiful. My hubby and I often say where would we holiday when we have everything right here. I truly feel like a tourist in my own backyard. There is so much to see and do here and the scenery is breath taking. Tofino and it’s Long Beach and winter storms, Port Hardy and it’s fishing, Telegraph Cove and it’s whale watching, Gold River and Tahsis for it sheer beauty and isolation, Comox Valley for cycling, kyaking and skiing, Qualicum for it’s bird watching and golfing, Parksville for it’s beaches and Rathtrevor Park, Nanaimo and the Bastion,Chemanius and the murals, Malahat and the scernery and the views of the mainland moutains and Mt. Baker and finally Victoria and it’s High tea, Fan Tan Alley and Butchart gardens. Yes, there is so much to see and do on Vancouver Island.Although the beauty of the Island seems abundant and well distributed, that does not hold same for the medical resources. There is certainly a discrepancy when it comes to the distribution of resources on the Island. In my previous post I talked about if you were requiring a angiogram the only place you could get one is Victoria. It seems like any of the major resources are all housed in Victoria. Major cancer treatments you either make the trip to Victoria or ferry ride to Vancouver or get information via Tele health conferences. Most things north of Victoria are lacking of resources. It seems the farther north you go the worse it gets.

It is bad enough to be inflicted with any life threatening desease but, when you have to travel for treatments or to see specialist, this just adds stress to an already difficult situation. Then there are the end of life issues. Palliative care and nursing has become huge in the past decade, yet the resources are only recently starting to trickle out into the out lying communities. Do you remember hearing about Port Alberni and a Hospice house they were trying to open? The community had a house donated with the intent of it being used for hospice and Palliative care. The community needed funding from Victoria to help make the facility operational. Victoria dragged it’s feet, kept saying resources weren’t available. It wasn’t until people in Port Alberni went to the press that anything started to happen.

Where I work we have Palliative care in the community but it is only available during the day. What’s that all about? You can only have cancer and end of life issues during the day? You are not allowed to have nausea, pain, or the likes during the night because resources to help you out with those issues are not available 24 hrs a day. Then if you have acute issues requiring hospitalization, it’s not easy to transition into the hospital because there is no one to coordinate this. Things just seem to get lost in the transition. In theory Palliative care is in place, but the delivery of this care is lacking. Why is it lacking, because the resources aren’t there…they are tied up down in Victoria.

There is some light. VIHA has hired a Nurse Practicioner for Palliative care for the Comox Valley area but this will take time to implement. Again, this is a direct result of the lack of funding being provided from Victoria.

When I lived on the mainland all of these resources were readily available.

We could debate that funding is based on the distribution of the population, but should we be penalized because we chose to live outside of the major centers?