Two local residents are spearheading a campaign to have funds donated to the Village of Burns Lake by Comfor Management Services Ltd. (CMSL) set aside for use in the new Lakes District Hospital & Health Centre.
Joan McFee of Colleymount and Paul Jean of Burns Lake are circulating a petition calling on Burns Lake village council to put CMSL’s $960,000 donation into a trust account for use in equipping the new hospital’s operating room. The document, which has already been signed by several hundred citizens, can be found at several locations in Burns Lake, Topley, Granisle, and electoral areas B (Burns Lake Rural) and E (Francois-Ootsa Rural) of the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako.
Jean, a former mayor of Burns Lake and a founding member of both CMSL and Burns Lake Community Forest Ltd. (BLCF), said he was disappointed when the community-owned corporation’s board decided to donate almost $1 million to the village. Although the municipality is the CMSL’s sole shareholder, he said both companies were intended to benefit all residents of the Lakes District, and not simply those living within municipal boundaries.
“That’s why we’re reaching out to the rural areas,” the former mayor said, noting that a fully-functional operating room would benefit everyone in the Lakes District.
Joan McFee says she got involved for the same reason.
“We did do some politicking to get an operating room in the hospital, and now there is going to be one, but it won’t be equipped,” she noted. “So we thought: ‘What better way (to use the CMSL donation) than put these funds toward that?’”
Both Jean and Joan McFee believe equipping the new operating room will help the community recruit more physicians. While they recognize that getting surgeons and anaesthesiologists to come to Burns Lake may be difficult, they say the task will be impossible if the hospital doesn’t have a functional operating room.
“If we don’t have an operating room, we’ll never get permanent doctors in Burns Lake,” said Jean adamantly. “I don’t care what they (Northern Health Authority officials) say. We’ll never get doctors here, at least not anyone with any surgical skills.”
Joan McFee notes that St. John Hospital in Vanderhoof, with its fully-equipped operating room, has been successful in attracting surgeons and specialists. She likes to think that by following Vanderhoof’s lead, Burns Lake may also be able to increase the scope of health care services available locally.
“If we were able to have a fully-equipped operating room, then possibly we could get some specialists here to do some of the surgeries, the small surgeries, like Vanderhoof is doing, and just build from there,” she said. “You never know where it might lead.”
At the very least, say Joan McFee and Jean, local women should be able to have their babies delivered here – something that was possible in the past, but isn’t any more.
“Moms can’t have their babies here, and that’s a real shame,” said Joan McFee. “It seems like we’re going backwards.”
Neither Joan McFee nor Jean know how much it will cost to equip the new operating room, but say they hope local health care officials can provide some answers. Yet even if costs exceed the $960,000 donation currently sitting in village coffers, they believe local residents will rise to the occasion.
Gordon McFee, Joan’s husband and a former chairman of the regional district, agrees. He noted that years ago, Lakes District residents helped raise money to have five rooms added to The Pines long-term care facility. At the time, he said, health care officials said they couldn’t afford to staff them, but now those rooms are being put to good use.
“I think that the community, if they know there’s a good cause, will pull together and really work hard to raise the necessary funds to equip the operating room, whatever the amount might be,” he said.
The petition currently being circulated by Joan McFee and former mayor Jean can be found in Burns Lake at the A&W Restaurant, the San-Bar, and various other locations. Organizers had planned to collect them by March 23, but said they may be willing to extend the deadline for signatures until later this week.