The following letter was sent to Lauren Tindall, director of St. Mary’s Hospital, and copied to Coast Reporter.
My partner suffers from aggressive, terminal leukemia. He has chosen palliative care, as chemotherapy is unlikely to succeed and will only make his last months miserable.
Since the diagnosis in August he has been in and out of hospital. We were distressed to learn that he must travel from Gibsons to St. Mary’s several times a week to have a dressing changed or to get blood tests. We’ve been told that home-care cannot do these things (it is not clear why). We have not been told by anyone in authority that there are alternatives to these exhausting and time-consuming trips. Even if a patient is fortunate enough to have someone willing to drive him or her to each appointment, travelling is difficult for someone who doesn’t feel well.
The Handi-Dart is a wonderful service, but spread too thin. For a short appointment the patient must spend hours waiting for the Handi-Dart to return to pick him up.
Is this any way to spend one’s last days? Our hospitals are over-crowded and most people would prefer to stay home for as long as possible, yet the system doesn’t make it easy.
At a Sept. 18 meeting on health care, held at the Gibsons Legion, Betty Baxter told us of a system in one of the Maritime Provinces whereby paramedics (who, here in B.C., are expected to be on call for a pittance) are paid and utilized to visit patients at home to do many of the things that, here, require a trip to the hospital. This is an idea that would ultimately save the system money since travelling while sick can only make people sicker.
Anne Miles, Gibsons
