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KELOWNA ROCKETS assistant coach Kim Dillabaugh has helped L.A. Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick develop into an elite netminder.
COLUMNIST Maxine DeHart salutes a special anniversary for Lakeview Market, an iconic grocery store in the Mission that has been around for 66 years.
THE SPORT of pickleball has been given a boost in West Kelowna with the addition of four new courts this week created specifically for pickleballers to use.
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THURSDAY May 31, 2012 The Central Okanagan’s Best-Read Newspaper www.kelownacapnews.com
serving our community 1930 to 2012
▼ HEALTH CARE
Mistake stalls free wine trade policy adoption
Nurses overworked in new KGH tower Alistair Waters ASSISTANT EDITOR
Judie Steeves STAFF REPORTER
It was a mistake that resulted in yesterday’s filibuster in the House of Commons that stalled legislation to permit free trade in wine amongst Canadian provinces, says southern Interior New Democrat MP Alex Atamanenko. Private Members’ Bill C-311, presented by Okanagan-Coquihalla Conservative MP Dan Albas, had the support of all parties prior to it going for third reading in the Commons yesterday, but debate on the bill was limited and time ran out before it finished. Atamanenko admitted his party has been very supportive of the bill, which would remove federal barriers to the transport of wine from one province to another and allow Canadians to buy wine from wineries in other provinces to take home, or to have it shipped to their homes. When it was first proposed in the House more than two years ago by Kelowna-Lake Coun-
DOUG FARROW/CONTRIBUTOR
KELOWNA GENERAL HOSPITAL nurses held a rally outside the new Centennial Tower building on Wednesday to protest what they feel is a lack of adequate nursing staff in the new facility. nurse. The new buildings at KGH opened with much fanfare last weekend with a week-long move from several other areas of the hospital into the new tower and clinical support building culminating Sunday with the transfer of 59 patients. They moved from other parts of the hospital — mainly the old Pandosy building—to the Centennial Tower.
The Pandosy Building is slated to be demolished to make room for the new Interior Heart and Surgical Centre, which will make KGH the fifth full cardiac care hospital in B.C. Munday said by rallying outside the hospital, launching an on-line petition campaign and calling on the government for more health care funding, nurses are not only standing up for their colleagues at KGH and other hospi-
tals across Interior Health, but also for patients and patient care. Munday said the province needs to recognize KGH is a regional facility that provides services to more than just the Central Okanagan, and it needs to be funded as such. “We are a tertiary hospital, meaning we treat patients from across the southern Interior,” said Munday, who has been a nurse at KGH for 27
years. She said despite the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been pumped into KGH in recent years for the construction of additional space and facilities, it is not uncommon to still see patients in beds in hallways at the hospital. “The lack of nurses is affecting safe patient care,” she said. KGH currently has about 700 nurses on staff, according to the union.
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latory care departments and psychiatric care unit. It also includes two relocated patient care units. At the rally, Munday said while the aim of the hospital should be a ratio of four patients for every nurse, currently the ratio stands at seven or eight patients for every nurse. However, McDonald said when the hospital budgets its allocation of staff, it does so with the aim of four patients per
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Nurses at Kelowna General Hospital say they need more staff to adequately provide “safe” patient care in the recently opened new medical facility. About 40 nurses rallied outside the new Centennial Tower at KGH on Wednesday afternoon to make their case, saying while they applaud the new addition to KGH, it requires more nurses. Speaking at the rally, B.C. Nurses’ Union regional chairwoman Laurie Munday called the lack of additional nurses a “huge oversight.” “You need the right number of nurses at the right time to look after patients,” she said. But Tracy McDonald, heath services administrator at KGH, disputed Munday’s claim that no extra staff were added as a result of the opening of the new six-storey tower and new clinical services building. McDonald said of the 18.7 new positions that have been added as a result of the expansion, 10 are nurses. “We are aware of the concerns of the BCNU,” said McDonald. “And we have increased staff with the addition of the Centennial Building.” The building holds several relocated KGH departments, including the emergency and ambu-
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