Brokop comes home for concert with cousin page 18
Helping immigrants get settled page 16
Tuesday August 7, 2012 Serving Surrey and North Delta www.surreyleader.com
Regular nurses to be trained for tricky insertions
IV nurses scrapped at large hospitals by Jeff Nagel FRASER HEALTH is eliminating specialized nurses who perform challenging intravenous needle insertions at the region’s largest hospitals. Surrey Memorial, Royal Columbian and Burnaby hospitals are the only ones in the region with IV nurse teams, but they’ll be disbanded in September in a move that will save $600,000 a year. Fraser Health officials say regular floor nurses will be trained to take over all injections. But some patients whose veins are difficult to locate fear the change will bring them much more pain through excessive needle Barbara pokes if regular nurses prove Smith less skilled than the teams. “When I heard about this I thought ‘Oh my God what am I going to do?’” said North Delta cancer survivor Barbara Smith, whose veins are scarred from chemotherapy and has preferred insertions by IV nurses who usually find the vein on the first try. Smith said she’s now somewhat reassured and hopeful the promise of broad training will mean all nurses end up more skilled in IV insertions. “A lot of people have a difficult IV start,” she said. “I’m skeptical just because there is a certain touch to this. There is an art to it.”
“I’m skeptical... there is an art to it.”
See IV TEAMS / Page 3
BOAZ JOSEPH / THE LEADER
Scanning the health care horizon
Radiologist Dr. W. Fin Hodge examines an image from a patient at the Jim Pattison Outpatient Care and Surgery Centre. In the second of a five-part Leader series on the ‘hidden’ side of Surrey Memorial Hospital care, meet the interpreters of diagnostic imaging on page 11.
Surrey Six murder case split into two separate trials Jamie Bacon will be tried separately from other three accused by Kevin Diakiw THE TRIAL OF the Surrey Six case has been split into two, with
Jamie Bacon being tried separately. Two separate indictments were filed in B.C. Supreme Court Thursday, allowing Bacon to be tried separately from Cody Rae Haevischer, Matthew James Johnston and Quang Vinh Thang (Michael) Le. All of them face charges in connection with the deaths of six people at the Balmoral Tower in Whalley on Oct. 19, 2007. Police believe four of the victims in the Surrey Six case were gang-related. Two others, 22-year-old Christopher Mohan, a
Editorial 6 Letters 7
neighbour, and 55-year-old Ed Schellenberg, who was repairing the fireplace, were innocent bystanders. “Separate trials will enable Mr. Bacon to bring applications in relation to issues involving only Mr. Bacon, including issues like solicitor client privilege, that were raised before the Honourable Mr. Justice McEwan in Mr. Bacon’s civil (habeas corpus) proceeding,” B.C. Criminal Justice Branch spokesman Neil MacKenzie said. Proceeding in this way, he said, will allow the trial of the other three accused to proceed without being affected by issues which
Life 16 Classifieds 19
See BACON / Page 3
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