PRINCE GEORGE
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Citizen
Serving the Central Interior since 1916
THURSDAY JUNE 1,2000
80 CENTS (HOME DELIVERED: 50 CENTS A DAY)
Doctors threaten strike if health care isn’t fixed
by BERNICE TRICK Citizen staff
Doctors at Prince George Regional Hospital say they will effectively go on strike June 15 unless the Health Ministry agrees to implement their nine-point plan to improve health care in the region.
This would leave PGRH without any general surgeons, orthopedic surgeons or anesthetists who will withdraw their privileges, Dr. Bert Kelly, spokesman for the Northern
Medical Society, said Wednesday.
People who need to come to emergency shouldn’t worry, Kelly said.
“We are working on provision of emergency care for our people. We will always staff emergency. It’s a priority. The last thing we want is to hurt our people,” Kelly said.
Family doctors, who are supporting the move by specialists, say they will withdraw privileges a week later on June 22.
The Northern Medical Society is urging residents in the Northern Interior Health Region to support its efforts to stop the loss of doctors at Prince George Regional Hospital.
“We want to be sure you know about the impending crisis in health-care delivery at PGRH,” the society said in a large advertisement in Tuesday’s Citizen.
They ask all those who have concerns about access to health care to contact one or all of the following:
■ MLA Lois Boone (Prince George-Mount Robson) 301 1268 Fifth Ave., Prince George, B.C. V2L 3L2. phone 250-563-9886. Legislative office 250-356-3015. Fax 250-565-4168. Web:
Lois.Boone. Office@leg. bc. ca
■ MLA Paul Ramsey (Prince George North) 301 1266 Fifth Ave., Prince George, B.C. V2L 3L2. Phone 250-563-9886. Legislative office 250-387-3751. Fax 250-565-4168. Web:
Paul.Ramsey. Office @leg. bc. ca
■ Mike Farnworth, Minister of Health, 2567 Shaughnessy St., Port Coquitlam, B.C. V3C 3G3. Phone 604-941-4001. Legislative office 250-387-5394. Fax: 250-387-3696. Web:
Mike. Farnworth. Office@leg.be. ca
■ Premier Ujjal Dosanjh 4938 Victoria Dr., Vancouver, B.C. V3P 3T6. Phone 604-332-6375. Legislative office 250-387-1715. Web:
Ujjal. Dosanjh. Office @leg. bc. ca
“We’ve known for a while this was happening, but we are appalled at how quickly we’ve been overcome by events,” said Kelly, referring to steady losses of physicians from PGRH.
“This is not an empty threat. This is an emergency in our city. Most of us have had it with crisis situations. And I can tell you, in today’s market, these people will be getting job offers from across the nation,” Kelly said.
“We want the government to implement our nine-point plan. It will cost money, but that’s the way it is in today’s world,” said Kelly, who said he’s lived in the area for 25 years.
“We need a system in place to immediately stop losses in our core staff and we need a further system to be able to recruit adequately-trained people in a very tight market.”
The nine-point plan, estimated to cost $30 million annually, calls for signing bonuses for new physicians, a five-year financial incentive program, on-call duty payments, funding to support physicians’ continuing education and teaching opportunities plus a community-based welcoming package for new physicians.
Kelly, anesthetist Dr. Peter Lutsch and orthopedic surgeon Dr. Michael Moran met for five hours Saturday with Health Ministry officials.
“We explained the gravity of what’s happening in our city,” but as of Wednesday afternoon no reply had been received, he said.
COMMUNITY
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New soccer fields
Cornered by Baldwin
The grass is always greener on TV.
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New community plan offers two directions
by BOB MILLER Citizen staff
The city’s new official community plan (OCP), unveiled Wednesday, projects a doubling of the city’s population to about 160,000 over the next 33 years and redevelopment of the CN yards on First Avenue, primarily as park space.
About 30 people chose to forgo a sunny afternoon to attend the first of two public review meetings at which work to date was summarized. The plan, which has been in the works for about 18 months, is due for completion this fall, said senior city planner Kerry Pateman. The process was repeated at a second meeting at 7 p.m. The display material will be available for review again from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. today in the second floor conference room at city hall.
City council is scheduled to deal with the review this fall and give final approval next spring.
Pateman introduced Susan Stratis, a senior planner with UMA Engineering Ltd. of Burnaby, the city’s OCP consultant, who summarized the plan, noting it provides for two options. Depending on reaction from the public and other stakeholders, the city may chose either option or a hybrid based on parts of both, she said. While there are similarities with Option A and Option B, there are also distinctions.
Option A (Concentrated development) provides for average housing density of 12.2 units per hectare for an increase of 29,750 potential new housing units, and a population increase of
81,800, with 99% of this growth in urban areas.
Option B (Dispersed development) provides for average housing density of 10 units per hectare for an increase of 28,670 potential new housing units, and a population growth of 79,500, with 94% growth in urban areas and 6% in rural areas.
In Option A, the downtown commercial area would expand into the CN yards (for tourist/travel uses) with most of the remainder' of the CN lands allocated to park use, except for the main line.
While Option A does not provide for significant expansion of the UNBC area or airport, Option B does, recognizing a business park west of the airport, complemented by a more urban development scheme in nearby Blackburn, Stratis said.
Total servicing expansion costs for items like sewers, storm sewers and water are estimated at $43 million for Option A and $53 million for Option B, which includes more rural land, which is more expensive to service.
Those who attended the meetings were given a questionnaire titled Options For The Future, asking their preference for Option A or B in such areas as housing, rural development, future commercial development, industry and major employment and servicing costs for specific neighbourhoods. People are asked to fill in the form and return it by June 9 to the development services department at city hall.
Citizen photo by Brent Braaten
LEAPING GATOR — Stan Zemlak of the Gladstone Elementary School Gators takes flight over the sand pit during the peewee boys long jump event Wednesday at the Prince George Elementary Track and Field meet at Massey Place Stadium. Close to
2,000 students from 50 schools in the North Central District are participating in the meet, which continues today at 9 a.m.
Treaty talks hit snag
An aboriginal band west of Prince George says it’s poised to move ahead with a B.C. Supreme Court petition because its concerns over a forest licence advertisement have not been addressed.
The move could indefinitely halt treaty talks with its umbrella organization — the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council — as the province has said it won’t negotiate with the group, which includes seven bands, while any one of the bands pursues court action.
The Saik’uz First Nation, which has about 700 members, launched the action earlier this year because it wanted the court to determine whether the Forests Ministry properly consulted it on an advertised 10-year licence for more than 20,000 logging truck loads of timber. The Forests Ministry said the band had been properly consulted on the licence, something the band disputes.
In March, the Saik’uz First Nation, located just south of Vanderhoof at Stoney Creek, had agreed to a 90-day discussion period with the province. The band had wanted some “economic participation” in the licence, but the province isn’t interested, Saik’uz band negotiator Barry Vickers said this week. “It looks like we’re going to reactivate our case in the courts,” he said. “It’s very frustrating.”
Natives in shock after two deaths
by GORDON HOEKSTRA Citizen staff
The chief of an aboriginal community northwest of Prince George said his people are in shock following the death of two of its young people — one from a gunshot to the head — on Tuesday.
A 20-year-old man was found injured inside a home on the Nak’azdli First Nation reserve in Fort St. James at 1:35 p.m., and the body of his 17-year-old girlfriend was found a short time afterward outside the house, said Fort St. James RCMP. The man was transported to Vancouver General Hospital by air ambulance but died in the evening, police said.
The 20-year-old had been shot in the head. The investigation into his death is being treated as a homicide, Sgt. Bill Bidden said Wednesday.
No information is being released yet on the nature of the girl’s death, he said.
An autopsy was expected to be performed on the man in Vancouver on Wednesday. An autopsy on the girl is scheduled today in Vancouver. More than a dozen officers, including serious crimes investigators from the
Blockade taken down
Nak’azdli band members who blockaded the band’s office for a week will now wait until the annual general assembly at the end of June to push their call for a forensic audit.
The band was in the midst of meeting with the chief and council on Tuesday to address concerns of the blockaders when it was learned two young people had died.
The meeting, which was in the midst of a lunch break, was not resumed.
“We’ll wait for the annual assembly now,” said blockade spokesperson Margo Sagalon. “There’s nothing more we can do until then.”
A motion had been passed at the meeting — attended by more than
100 band members — that called for the forensic audit, but there wasn’t time to address specific areas of the audit, said Sagalon.
Their calls for dissolving the chief and council went nowhere, she said. Department of Indian Affairs officials at the meeting told the band members its not easy to dissolve an elected council, said Sagalon.
Chief Harold Prince said the forensic audit was accepted. “(The deaths) certainly ended the blockade in a hurry and snapped people into reality,” said Prince, who added he’s stepping down as chief in July for personal reasons. He said his son has leukemia and he must dedicate more time to his family.
North District office in Prince George, are involved in the investigation.
Nak’azdli band chief Harold Prince said the reserve community of
about 640 is in shock.
“We have a couple of teams of therapists and counsellors that are in the community to help the families of the youths, and other youths they
went to school with, to help us cope with the tragedy,” he said.
The community is not sure what happened, while the police investigation is ongoing, said Prince. “Nothing of this nature has happened before,” he said.
The tragedy Tuesday brought an end to a week-long blockade of the band’s office by some Nak’azdli members who were pushing for a forensic audit of the band’s finances. The blockade was brought down out of respect, said blockaders. “I think the community is still in shock. . . . It’s very tragic,” said Margo Sagalon, a spokesperson for the blockaders, and an aunt of the 17-year-old girl. “The (pair) had been going together for two years. Everybody knew them.”
Sgt. Bidden said there was “absolutely” no connection between the blockade and the deaths.
The deaths follow two other incidents in the past month in nearby communities in which four people died.
Three men died following an attack at a ranch south of Vanderhoof, and one man died in Fraser Lake as a result of a gunshot wound.
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