Maple Ridge ex-mayor fights back. p3
Along the Fraser Why I’ve never owned a new car. p6
THE NEws
Gardening K is for Kalmia, flavour of the week. p33
www.mapleridgenews.com Friday, May 24, 2013 · serving Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows · est. 1978 · 604-467-1122 · 50¢
MLA could stay on Pitt council Doug Bing wouldn’t take municipal salary, though by M oni sha M ar t in s staff reporter
The MLA-elect for Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows won’t collect two taxpayerfunded salaries if he stays on as a councillor for the city. Doug Bing hasn’t decided yet whether he’ll complete his third term as a member of Pitt Meadows council, but promised to forgo his salary – $24,780 in 2012 – if he does. “I have a problem with people double-dipping, especially if people are working for the public,” said Bing, comparing his situation to a person who retires from a job, then gets hired as a consultant. “To get two salaries doesn’t seem right.” As MLA, Bing will make a base salary of $101,859, which kicks in once he’s sworn in mid-June (retroactive to the date of election – May 14). Lynn O’Laughlin outside Ridge Meadows Hospital, from where her mother was transferred, she says, without her knowledge.
see Bing, p3
Colleen Flanagan/the news
Mom vanishes from hospital bed Lynn O’Laughlin thought her mother had died
by Nei l Corbe tt staff reporter
Lynn O’Laughlin walked into Ridge Meadows Hospital to visit her elderly mother on May 15, but found her bed empty, the room cleared of all her things. Her first thought was that the 78-year-old, who had suffered from an infection, had passed away during the night. The first
people she spoke with at the hospital couldn’t answer what had happened to her. Finally, she learned that her mother had been transferred to Langley Memorial Hospital, one of five patients on the Path unit (Patient Assessment and Transition to Home) who had been part of the move. “To freak us out with that is horrible,” she said. “I thought mom had passed away. She had a fever before the move, and still wasn’t 100 per cent since her fall.” The Path ward is where patients
5oz Sirloin
“How hard is it to pick up the phone and phone the families,” she asks. Asked why her mother would be moved, she was told that the beds were needed. O’Laughlin said her mom’s case worker told her that it is not his responsibility to phone families about such transfers. When she saw her mom, she found that she was still feverish. “When I found out that she had a fever when they transferred her, I couldn’t believe it,” said O’Laughlin. see Hospital, p10
Index
Uncle Burger
3
go prior to going home or to a different facility. She had been in hospital six weeks, and on the Path unit for two. O’Laughlin complained that she should have been informed. Her mother has the onset of dementia, and the move would be a confusing trial for her. In any event, she would have been leaving the ward soon, scheduled to move into Willow Manor on June 1. O’Laughlin has power of attorney for her mother, and equates her role to the guardianship a parent has of a child, so she should have been called.
TM
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Opinion Along the Fraser Acts of Faith As we Age home&gardening Community Calendar scoreboard
6 6 23 27 33 41 45
Education: Astronomical scholarship for MRss student. see story, p11
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