Hello to all of you out there in cyberspace...
The following article from the Times Colonist gives you some idea of what decisions were made at the Comox Strathcona Regional Hospital District Board meeting that took place yesterday. The uncertainty around this topic has been very stressful for our community and it was time to put it to rest. We have supported upgrades to the two existing hospitals, not one, regional facility. Read on:


Friday » February 8 » 2008

VIHA shocked as plans to build north-Island regional hospital are scuttled

Cindy E. Harnett
Times Colonist

Friday, February 08, 2008

The dream of building one big $300-million regional hospital to replace two aging facilities and serve all residents of the north Island is dead - for now.

"We're tremendously disappointed," said Georgina MacDonald, Vancouver Island Health Authority's vice-president of planning. In a dramatic end to a bitter saga, the Comox Strathcona Regional Hospital District board withdrew its support yesterday for the proposed full-service 230-bed North Island Regional Hospital.

"I was very shocked," MacDonald said. She and other VIHA executives back to Victoria from Courtenay yesterday, and back to the drawing board.

"We feel very strongly that the regional hospital is the only sustainable way to deliver health-care services into the future for north Island residents."

Currently, the region's residents are served by two hospitals: the Campbell River and District General Hospital, with 59 acute-care beds; and St. Joseph's General Hospital, run by the Roman Catholic diocese in the Comox Valley, with 112 acute-care beds. The aging hospitals are about 45 kilometres apart, and serve a population of about 100,000.

The new regional hospital would have been built at Dove Creek Road, much closer to Courtenay than Campbell River. The existing hospitals would have received modest upgrades - $20 million to Campbell River hospital and $5 million to St. Joseph's - to retain limited services.

Instead, the 20-member Comox Strathcona hospital board decided it wants VIHA to scrap the new hospital and invest in upgrades and expansions of the existing hospitals "as soon as possible," said chairman Fred Bates.

The board also wants the province to pay for it - with the approximately $180 million it would have spent on the regional hospital.

The province and regional districts typically share capital costs based on a 60-40 split, respectively.

"We feel the concept of a regional hospital has expired, and we have to move on with upgrading the two existing hospitals," said Campbell River Mayor Roger McDonell.

"Neither community has the population to support a regional hospital on its own, and neither community can be without a hospital."

Health Minister George Abbott warned that the hospital board's decision would have negative consequences.

"A number of specialty services on the north Island would not be feasible or sustainable under the existing two-community-hospital model," Abbott wrote in an e-mail to the Times Colonist.

VIHA does not have an estimate of the cost to fully upgrade both hospitals.

Yesterday's decision is the latest in a two-year tug-of-war over where to locate the new regional hospital, or whether to have one at all.

VIHA plans to meet as a board and with physicians and staff to figure out how to rebuild its proposal.

ceharnetttc.canwest.com