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Local doctor shortage By Jackie Lieuwen Houston Today
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Jackie Lieuwen /Houston Today
Nearly 25 boys built cars with several church leaders at the Christian Reformed Church Cadet Club. Last Thursday they all got together to race their cars at a track in the church basement. It’s an annual club highlight for many of the boys. Cadets got their Derby Cars as a Christmas gift and the cadets painted and polished the cars for last week’s competition.
Ninth Street Medical Clinic may close in August unless another doctor joins the practice. Dr. Chris Chandler says he wants to keep the practice open, but needs another doctor to continue. His business partner, Dr. Wouter Morkel, had a new daughter born in January and will not work in Houston after August 1, 2015. Dr. Chandler says he wants to stay and work in Houston. “I like the challenge of Houston. People are great here and there are many people who need health services here,” he said. “If we can’t find someone else to join the practice, then we’ve reached the point that it won’t
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“If we can’t find another physician by [August 1], we’ll have to close the clinic.” - Dr. Chris Chandler
be functional,” Chandler said. “We’ve set a date of August 1 and if we can’t find another physician by then, we’ll have to close the clinic.” If that happens, Chandler says he doesn’t know where he’ll work, as he likes working in underserviced areas where doctors are needed. See CLINIC on Page 2
Separate inquest into Burns Lake sawmill explosion By Flavio Nienow Black Press
A separate inquest will be held in Burns Lake to examine the deaths of the two workers in the explosion at the Babine Forest Products sawmill in 2012. While a single inquest was previously
announced to examine the deaths of both fatal incidents in Burns Lake and Prince George in 2012, the B.C. Coroners Service will now be proceeding with two separate inquests. The inquest into the Babine Forest Products mill deaths will begin on July 13,
2015, at the Island Gospel Fellowship Hall in Burns Lake. The inquest into the Lakeland Mills deaths will proceed as scheduled at the Prince George courthouse on March 2, 2015. Chief coroner Lisa Lapointe noted in a press release that the B.C. Coroners Service
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hold inquests to assure communities that the deaths of their members will not be concealed, overlooked or ignored. “The Burns Lake community has argued eloquently that it has a powerful interest in hearing firsthand the information about the explosion
that took place in their community,” said Lapointe in a press release. “Those community needs outweigh what advantages there might be in combining the two inquests.” Steven Zika, Chief Executive Officer of Hampton Affiliates, said he would have
preferred to have one inquest instead of two. “We think both cases are very similar; it would have made it a lot more efficient for everybody to have one inquest,” he said. Zika said a representative from Babine Forest Products will participate at the inquest in Burns Lake.
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“It’s going to be a very emotional process for a few of our employees, but maybe that’s part of the process.” Carl Charlie, aged 42, and Robert Luggi Jr., aged 45, were killed in the Burns Lake explosion on Jan. 20, 2012. See FIRE on Page 3
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