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Vol. 61, Issue 191
www.dailytownsman.com
Interior Health cancels Meals On Wheels The new Dinners At Home program will provide frozen, nutritious meals that need to be reheated in the home
S A LLY MAC D ONAL D Townsman Staff
Interior Health has changed the way it delivers ready-made meals to clients at home. Starting October 15, the health authority will replace its Meals On
Wheels program with the new Dinners At Home program. There are around 20 people enrolled in Meals On Wheels in Cranbrook and 20 in Kimberley. Meals On Wheels volunteers de-
liver hot cooked meals to people’s homes three days a week. Through Dinners At Home, people will be able to order whatever quantity of frozen meal they require, enough for one each day, and re-
heat the meal themselves at home. But packages of meals must be picked up from the F.W. Green Home in Cranbrook or the Kimberley Special Care Home. Volunteers in the
Meals On Wheels program have expressed concerns that Dinners At Home won’t be appropriate for some clients, many of whom can’t drive to pick up meals, or can’t reheat meals because of medi-
cal conditions. But according to Interior Health, these concerns don’t take into consideration other services the clients have available to them. “We are working individually with each in-
33 part-timers, Trail four full-timers and 27 part-timers, Castlegar one full-timer and 27 part-timers, and Grand Forks one full-timer and 14 part-timers. (Part time employees submit their availability and shifts are staffed accordingly.)
dividual client or a family contact to ensure that the supports that they have are available for heating meals. If they need a home support worker to come in and reheat meals and ensure that they are eating regularly, then these meals are in their home already and with their likes and dislikes (catered to) as well,” said Laresa Altenhoff, Interior Health East’s area manager for food and nutrition services. Home support workers can visit every day if required to reheat the meal, she said. According to Altenhoff, Dinners At Home will give clients more choice of meals, meals more often, they can choose what time they eat, and meals will be available to people living outside city limits. “People think that Meals On Wheels is sustaining people, but three meals a week is really not enough,” she said. Clients are already making arrangements for meals on the days that Meals On Wheels is not delivered, she went on. “Right now, they get only three meals a week. So out of 21 meals (if you ate three meals a day), what are clients doing for the rest of the 17 meals? Someone is out shopping for them, getting their incidentals, toilet paper, all those type of things. “Somewhere there is a support. So we will locate a support so that someone can come and pick up their meals. If there isn’t anyone, then the volunteer drivers who wanted to do that will come and pick up the meals.”
See CRESTON , Page 3
See DINNERS , Page 3
BARRY COULTER PHOTO
Amy Ray (left) and Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls brought their 25-year repertoire and legendary live performance to the Key City Theatre in Cranbrook Friday, Sept. 27. Cranbrook was a stop on the folk rock duo’s first substantive tour of Canada, and their enthusiasm for the journey was evident in their non-stop high energy performance, the boisterous audience reaction and the conversation back and forth between crowd and players. Jeremy Fisher, a singer-songwriter from Ottawa, opened the show.
Kootenay’s fastest ambulances found in Creston G R EG NE STE ROF F Nelson Star
If you have a medical emergency in the Kootenays, it’s best to be in Creston, judging by statistics from the BC Ambulance Service. In 2012, Creston’s average response time to Code 3 calls — requiring lights and sirens — was nine min-
utes and 20 seconds, better than Cranbrook (10:01), Nelson (11:06), Castlegar (10:42), Trail (11:16), or Grand Forks (12:30). However, all were slower than the nine-minute standard suggested by the US Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services, a
benchmark reached by only ten communities in the province last year. Creston also posted the fastest times in the region in 2010 and 2011. The figures, obtained through a freedom of information request by former air ambulance pilot Hans
Dysarsz, surprised rural Creston regional district director Larry Binks, a retired BC Ambulance administrator. “Under ten minutes is good,” he said. “It comes down to staffing: if a station isn’t staffed properly, response time is going to be poor. We recognize we live in rural areas and won’t
get the same response times [as in urban centres] but certainly deserve better than what is happening in some cases.” Creston achieved its response times despite only having one fulltime paramedic and 13 part-timers. By comparison, Nelson has seven full-timers and