1979 Legislative Session: ist Session, 32nd Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1979

Night Sitting

[ Page

817 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Health estimates.

On vote 128.

Mr. Cocke –– 817

On the amendment.

Mrs. Dailly –– 818

Hon. Mr. McClelland –– 820

Mr. Howard –– 821

Mr. Kempf –– 823

Mr. Passarell –– 824

Mr. Heinrich –– 825

Mr. Barber –– 826

Mr. Hyndman –– 829

Ms. Brown –– 830

Mr. Ritchie –– 832

Mr. Nicolson –– 832

The House met at 8:30 p.m.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND:

Mr. Speaker, I would like the House to welcome some guests from the

British Columbia Health Association who are in the gallery today: Mrs.

Pat Wadsworth, the executive director, who is accompanied by three of

her staff, Kathy Jang, Lori Smith and Susan Keye. I would like you to

welcome them all.

Orders of the Day

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF HEALTH

(continued)

On vote 128: minister's office, $144,082 — continued.

MR. COCKE:

Mr. Chairman, I'm informed that that's the best applause I'm going to

get all night, so I should possibly sit down. [Applause.] You see, I

knew I could do better.

Anyway, Mr. Chairman, I have a

number of questions that I think we should be discussing tonight. One

of the things that occurs to me is the minister's short tirade before

the dinner break. I have heard some holier-than-thou presentations in

this House, and the only problem I have with this one is that I have

real difficulty with its credibility. The minister stood up earlier

this evening and told us how great things were in the health field, and

how responsible he was. [Applause.] I note the Attorney-General (Hon.

Mr. Gardom) leading the applause. That being the case, his credibility

has gone down another couple of notches.

Mr. Chairman, every headline, every hospital, every health facility and every

health group in this province says: "What is going on in health care?"

They're not prepared to take the member for North Okanagan's (Mrs. Jordan'

s) word that all is healthy in the garden and all is lovely in the garden.

HON. MR. GARDOM: That's Swinburne.

MR. COCKE:

The Attorney-General should not use that kind of language in this

House. In any event you should not call your colleague a swindler.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. COCKE:

Mr. Chairman, the member for North Okanagan got up and told us that she

resented those words — and I'm paraphrasing — and that she was unhappy

about the fact that the administrator at her hospital was paid $53,000

a year for carrying on that rather, I gather, token responsibility. No

one is worth it in health care, she says. Well, we know that they're

worth it in ICBC. Sherrell is worth $80,000. Your government is paying

him $80,000 to run ICBC. Is it more important to run a major hospital

in this province, or is it more important to run ICBC at the expense of

everybody, incidentally, and by bringing in the $80,000 person from the

great United States of America by way of Europe?

On the other hand, we have that great giveaway program, BCRIC, run by a guy named Helliwell.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. COCKE: I am comparing salaries with this vote.

MR. CHAIRMAN:

To all members of the House, please. There has been some degree of

latitude granted, of course, during these debates. But we are

discussing the administrative actions of the Minister of Health.

MR. COCKE: I am amazed that latitude has been given us to speak in the most general way about the minister's estimates.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Next you'll want longitude.

MR. COCKE:

The Attorney-General has suddenly become a geographer. That's the first

time he's made any kind of sense since he's been sitting in on that

side of the House.

I won't talk about the fact that

Helliwell has an income of over $119,000 from BCRIC. But I will say

that the member for North Peace River talks about a $53,000

administrator running a hospital in North Okanagan. Shocking!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: It's the member for North Okanagan!

MR. COCKE: I wonder if I've got this right. Can the member identify one Dr. L.T. Jordan?

Interjection.

MR. COCKE:

I wouldn't say it was $93,000, but I bet you the member could. I know a

doctor practising in Vernon is worth an awful lot more than the

administrator of the hospital. We are kidding ourselves about the whole

question of services to people, of the importance of services to

people, and of the priority people set on looking after our own health

care.

The doctors had a negotiation and a non-negotiation

with the minister. Finally, just before the election, during the

campaign, the minister suddenly said: "Well, I guess I'd better do

something. I haven't done anything up to now." What did he do? He

settled. That's the way that minister operates. You've got to put him

right under the gun, and then, finally, he sort of drifts into a

situation where he's able to, at least, partially remedy a situation.

Mr.

Chairman, after the minister was placed under the gun he agreed that

the doctors in this province were maybe correct in asking for what

everybody else does in a society that's involved with inflation. And so

he settled. But when did he settle? During the election campaign. When

did he bring in the 7.5 percent? At roughly the same time. When did he

bring in: "I'll pick up your deficit."? Just before the estimates of

the Minister of Health. Oh, boy, put him under the gun and he'll

deliver. But he delivers too little and too late. Our health-care

system in this province is in chaos because of this minister.

I suggest that there is a group of people out there in the medical field and in the health field who would desperately

[ Page 818 ]

like

to put themselves in a position where they could offer more service or

as much service as they have in the past. I'm dealing now with

Physiotherapists and with chiropractors. You know what their increases

have meant over the period that that's minister has been minister?

They've meant a decrease in service to your patients, you members of

the back bench.

MR. RITCHIE: That's wrong.

MR. COCKE:

Is it, Mr. Member for Central Fraser Valley? Let me explain it to you —

and I know it's going to take me some time to explain it to you, of all

people. But let me explain it this way. If a patient has a maximum

that's available in terms of money that can be expended on his behalf —

such as $75 or $100 or whatever — and if the minister gives an increase

in fee to the person that's delivering the service without giving an

increase in the maximum, I ask you this, — and I know that it's going

to be somewhat difficult for you to figure this out: is this not a

reduction in service to that patient?

That has been going on in those areas for the last three and a half years, period. Amen.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: There goes the budworm squeaking again. You're early; you're not supposed to become a moth until at least three weeks from now.

Mr.

Chairman, I suggest to you that the Minister of Health doesn't have

control over what he's doing. I now know why all those members of the

back bench have been sitting there smiling during his estimates. They

think he's vulnerable, and I don't blame them. Every one of you has an

opportunity to fill his shoes. As a matter of fact, I suggest to you

that you don't have to have feet at all to fill his shoes.

AN HON. MEMBER: What are you filling?

MR. COCKE: I'm filling a very responsible position as critic of that ministry.

Mr.

Chairman, all afternoon we've asked some questions, and I'm going to

ask some questions later this evening — questions around the priority

on health care in this province. We've gotten absolutely no

satisfaction from that minister. We have nothing in terms of any kind

of understanding or of responsible answers. I have no reluctance

whatsoever in moving the following motion. He expects this motion, and

so he should — the first and only motion of non-confidence in this

House this year. The motion is as follows: that the salary of the hon.

Minister of Health, as provided for in vote 128, be reduced by $1. Mr.

Chairman, I so move.

On the motion.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The motion seems to be in order, is there a seconder?

MRS. DAILLY:

Yes, I'm the seconder, Mr. Chairman. The reason I'm seconding this

motion is that I've listened very carefully to the debate so far and

listened particularly to what the minister had to say in reply to some

of the points made by our critic for Health and also made very ably by

the member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown), who represents the same

area as I do. We have experienced some very serious problems in health

care in our Burnaby hospital.

When the minister spoke this

afternoon his only defence to the criticisms which were brought forward

here from this side of the House seemed to be that he just dragged out

a few old quotes from the former Minister of Health (Mr. Cocke). He

seemed very pleased to be able to state to the House that the former

Minister of Health, under the NDP government, had a number of times

actually stated that we have to be careful about rising health costs.

Mr. Chairman, that is true.

Any responsible government has

that job every so often to send out a warning when they are concerned

about rising costs. But the difference between the actions of the NDP

government and the actions of the Social Credit government in the field

of health is very clear. Even though the warnings may have been sent

out to be careful of the public purse at the time we were in government

also, the difference with the Social Credit government is they have not

only sent out warnings.... This minister has imposed an arbitrary

ceiling on the hospital costs in this province with the result, Mr.

Chairman, that health care in this province — care to the patients in

this province — has seriously deteriorated under this government. That

is not something that could be said about the state of health care

under the NDP government. So there is a very basic difference.

The

three Burnaby MLAs have met a number of times on the situation in

Burnaby. We've met with a number of the people in Burnaby, and not just

for the purpose of presenting ourselves here in the Legislature to be

prepared to discuss the estimates with the minister and to make a few

political points. We gathered that information from concerned citizens

and workers in Burnaby. They came to us with sincere concerns about the

situation and the state of health in the Burnaby Hospital. That is why

I am standing here to second this motion. Nothing the minister has said

to us today gives us any hope that he has any real awareness or that he

has any intention of alleviating the very serious condition which

exists in many of our hospitals in this province.

At most of

the meetings we had there was one question which we always asked of the

people who were concerned. We were talking to workers in the hospitals:

"Could you say, with the budget restrictions imposed upon you by the

Social Credit Minister of Health, that patient care is indeed

deteriorating?" The answer was yes. We fought for many years, and I'm

proud to belong to the party which fought to bring about comprehensive

health care in the whole country. I found it very ironic, listening to

the member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem), who seems to feel somehow or

other that the Social Credit Party had been a pioneer in this field. We

are well aware that it was one of our former national leaders of the

CCF-NDP, Tommy Douglas, who was the pioneer for health care for all, so

that no one in our country would be deprived of health care because of

cost.

We have a proud history, and we have been very proud

that other governments, no matter what their political stripe, have

seen fit to endorse comprehensive health care. We are well aware of the

situation in the United States today, Mr. Chairman, where people still

face disaster with large hospital bills and medicare costs. The United

States has not yet seen fit to endorse the basic principle of health

care,

[ Page

819 ]

medicare and hospitalization which was pioneered by our party and which is

now all across Canada.

this party particularly it is very sad to see a state of affairs in

this province where comprehensive health care is obviously

deteriorating. May I just say that in our meetings with people in

Burnaby we have some very specific examples of how this care is

suffering. I listened to the member for North Okanagan (Mrs. Jordan)

who stood up and did her usual flim-flam speech all around the ball

park trying to defend this government. I listened very carefully and I

really couldn't find one basic statement which she made which showed

she really had any defence for the deteriorating health care. The only

point she did make was about the high cost of administration. We all

can get concerned about that, but that is just putting up a straw

person at this time. If that is her only defence for the fact that many

people in this province are suffering from lack of proper care in our

hospitals because of this government it is a pretty weak defence.

the Burnaby General Hospital we have nurses who are so concerned that

they've almost prepared daily diaries of the situation as a result of

the cutbacks. I know the minister has stood up through many question

periods this session and said there are not real cutbacks. What he is

trying to suggest is that if there are any problems in these hospitals,

it all rests with the hospital administration or board. That is

absolutely not true, Mr. Chairman. When any minister, in these times of

inflation, imposes 5 percent ceilings on hospital costs there are bound

to be problems. There has been no choice for many of these hospitals

but to cut back.

Perhaps there are some cutbacks that won't

really affect patient care, and if you are a responsible administrator

and a responsible hospital board, it is your duty, every so often, to

check and make sure that the moneys you are using are being employed

responsibly. But, Mr. Chairman, I want to discuss briefly some of the

actual things which have happened in the Burnaby General Hospital. Then

I hope that you will agree with me that there are definite cutbacks

imposed by this government which are severely curtailing care to our

patients in the hospitals.

In Burnaby General Hospital there

are cutbacks in nursing orderlies in acute care, in case room aides, in

patient transport aides, in extended-care nurse aides, dietary aides,

physiotherapy clerks, maintenance clerks, laboratory assistants, stores

and transportation. What does this actually mean when it gets down to

the actual patient in that hospital bed? If the nurses find themselves,

because of these cutbacks, with a lot of unnecessary duties, which

before could be taken up by the nurses' aides and other personnel, it

is obvious they don't have the time to spend with their patients the

way they should.

Because there are no orderlies in some of

the wings in the hospital, many of the female nurses now have to do the

catheterization for males. This is very detrimental to the mental

health of male patients, and I can assure you that the nurses

themselves are not pleased that they're put in this position. They have

been put in this position because of the cutback in orderlies in

Burnaby General Hospital. There are a lot of details here on some

rather sad situations that have happened which I won't go into now in

the House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Excuse me one moment, Madam Member. I wonder if we could

pay attention to the member speaking, please, and if there could be some quiet

in the House.

MRS. DAILLY:

There have been cutbacks in the physiotherapy staff. Nurses are now

expected, at Burnaby General Hospital, to do physiotherapy treatments,

such as ventolin treatments, chest physio and so on, which take up more

of the nurse's time and often require the nurse to make extra trips to

various parts of the hospital for equipment.

Then they have

a note here with reference to taking bodies to the morgue. This is a

problem, on nights especially, when a body has to be removed to the

morgue because at least two female nurses are needed, and there are

only three staff altogether on one particular ward. Therefore one nurse

has to cover 37 patients alone in the interim.

Mr. Chairman,

I'm mentioning this in detail to point out to this House that these

cutbacks are affecting what happens to the patient in our hospitals.

Another

rather sad thing in the Burnaby hospital is that due to dietary

cutbacks, there will be no hot breakfast available. This is

detrimental. Mr. Chairman, particularly to the elderly patients, for

many of whom hot cereal and toast are the mainstay of their diet.

Instead, the nurses are now given prepackaged cereals which they have

to open; a nurse has to waste her time doing this. Then she has to add

water, and then I don't know if any of you have tried those instant

cereals out of the boxes, but they are not the most palatable thing

anyone would want to try. For old people, particularly, their breakfast

is often the one meal which they do enjoy; they're used to having at

least a hot, pleasant meal. That's been taken away from them because

this minister and the Social Credit government have seen fit to make

cutbacks.

While I'm talking about this, Mr. Chairman, I

always find the priorities of this government rather astounding. We see

ministers stand up recommending $25 million for stadiums and more money

for convention centres, and at the same time they are cutting back on

basic things in the hospitals in this province which affect the health

and security of the patients in the hospitals.

Mr. Chairman, I have pages and pages in front of me of things which have happened

in the Burnaby hospital which have severely affected the morale, not only of

the nursing staff and the other Burnaby staff.... Most important of all, if their

morale is affected, what does it do to the patients? They have attempted. I

think, to protest to the Minister of Health. These problems have been brought

to his attention. Yet when we listened to the minister in his reply to the debate

this afternoon. again he took a completely negative tack. He gives us no hope:

no positive action seems to be suggested to alleviate this.

know that there has been a statement made that he is going to release

more money. But I think that's very cynical. It's needed, Mr. Chairman,

but do things always have to reach a point where the people of our

province have to suffer unnecessarily before this government very

politically decides the time has come to hand a bit of money out? In

health care you can't afford that kind of spasmodic handing out of

money at the political whim of a minister or government. Health care,

as I said a few moments back, is one of the greatest things that we

have in Canada, at least the way it has been handled to date. I think

it's very sad to have a government that is trying to bolster up other

areas of

[ Page 820 ]

their ministries — Highways, et cetera — but which has no care at all for the people in our hospitals.

Mr.

Chairman, I listened to that minister. Again, in his defence, all he

could talk about was not only what the former Minister of Health had

said but the fear which the NDP had created with some of their election

commercials. You know, the reason I'm up here supporting this motion of

no confidence in the handling of this ministry by this minister is that

if anyone has created the fear of health security in this province

being taken away, it is that minister and this Social Credit government.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND:

Mr. Chairman, I'm going to vote against this motion. I wasn't going to

speak, and I was going to allow some of the other people to speak, but

there are a couple of questions that perhaps deserve answering.

First

of all, the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) has his dates mixed

up again, Mr. Chairman. There was no settlement between the government

and the British Columbia Medical Association on the eve of the

election, or during the election, or at any other time. The government

made its settlement after the election, and long after the election,

when the Treasury Board finally made that settlement.

Mr.

Chairman, I am getting sick and tired of the phoniness that comes from

those members on the other side of this House. I was prepared to even

offer some congratulations to the two members from Burnaby who spoke

earlier for their willingness to sit down and meet with the members of

their hospitals and talk about the problems. I think that's what MLAs

are supposed to do. But obviously, if they met they didn't listen,

because the member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown) sat in this House

before the supper break and talked for an hour. No, she didn't talk for

an hour, Mr. Chairman, she read from two or three letters for an hour,

and complained about services which weren't being provided at Burnaby

General Hospital. Who did you talk to? You didn't talk to anyone who

knew what was going on in that hospital. You talked about the EEG

program, and read some old letter from a doctor about not providing

that program. The program was approved on March 30. Months ago the

program was approved, and a letter of approval went out to Mr. Norman

Barth, the administrator of the hospital. She talked about nuclear

medicine as though that program was not in the works. That program was

approved by a letter to the administrator of the hospital, and if she

had met with anyone who had anything to do with the hospital at all,

she'd have known that. All I can assume is that she sat in her office

in Burnaby, and said she met with somebody. But she didn't meet with

the people who were responsible for making those programs available.

They'd been approved by Hospital Programs.

Mr. Chairman, you

talk about priorities, and the member for Burnaby-Edmonds mentioned our

priorities for health care in this province. I'm extremely proud of the

fact that we've been able to convince this government, through Treasury

Board and through its members, to spend more than 25 percent of its

total budget on providing health care for the people of British

Columbia. Over 25 percent is more than any other province in this

country provides.

Talk about cutbacks! There haven't been any cutbacks.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

HON. MR. McCLELLAND:

There haven't been any cutbacks. Mr. Chairman, I challenge that member

to get up and tell me where these people are who've been laid off at

Burnaby General Hospital. You tell me who those people are — you can't

do it. You talk about cutbacks. Do you know how many staff there were

in Burnaby General Hospital in 1975 when, thank God, your government

left office? There were 615 staff — that's how many. Do you know how

many staff there are at Burnaby General today? Almost 1,000. What kind

of a cutback is that? Some cutback. You want to know how the budgets

have been going on the hospitals you're so concerned about. Do you know

what the budget was for Burnaby General Hospital in 1975, when your

government left office? It was $10 million. Do you know what it is

today? It's $18 million — almost double in less than four years. Some

cutback. And there's been practically no difference in the numbers of

patients served.

Mr. Chairman, there's a lot of phony stuff

going on around here about the so-called cutbacks in health care. Do

you know what the total cost of operating our hospitals was in 1975 and

1976? It was about $380 million. Do you know what it is this year?

It'll be over $650 million — almost doubled in four years. What kind of

a cutback is that? Let's at least get these debates back on a plane of

honesty, and get away from the phoniness we're getting from that side

of the House.

You talk about history, and that pious

attitude you have of being the saviours of the country, and having

introduced medicare to this country. Baloney! Do you know how medicare

came into this country? I'll tell you. I'I give you a little bit of

history. Sure, T.C. Douglas introduced medicare in Saskatchewan. He had

a terrible fight to do it. He had a revolution on his hands with his

medical profession. And he was not able to expand medicare beyond

Saskatchewan because nobody had the guts to do any more until the

mid-1960s, when W.A.C. Bennett brought medicare to British Columbia.

Mr. Chairman, you read your history books and you'll find out why....

MS. BROWN: You are not serious.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I beg your pardon?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND:

Do you know when medicare was introduced in Canada? It was introduced

in the sixties, my friend, mainly because the doctors got together with

the government in British Columbia and put forward a program that could

be accepted, and went across Canada with it. You phony, pious people on

the other side don't even know your history. You'll sit there and

wallow in that piety. That's okay — it keeps you off the streets.

You

talk about cutbacks. This government is the only government in Canada

in the last three years that has been able to build the resources to

introduce new social programs. Every other government in Canada is

cutting back. This government introduced major, new social programs.

Who introduced air ambulance service in this province? The Social

Credit government in the spring of 1977. Let me ask some of your

members from the north

[ Page 821 ]

about

air ambulance service, and what it used to cost. When you were

government of this province, to fly from Fort St. John to Vancouver

cost $1,000 or $1,200 for six seats in an airplane. What does it cost

today, Mr. Member for North Peace? It costs $100 maximum. What did it

used to cost to fly from Skeena down to Vancouver — $800, $900, $1,000?

Today it costs $100 maximum, and you get your escort and your nurse and

whoever else you need to come with you. Who introduced that program to

British Columbia? I told you earlier today that that's program now

transports eight people every day in this province.

Who

introduced the most major construction program in the history of this

province to rebuild the city hospitals? The Vancouver General Hospital,

which had been neglected for years; St. Paul's Hospital; Victoria

General Hospital and Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria are being

rebuilt. Who introduced those programs to rebuild those city hospitals?

Those programs are underway now. There's $100 million a year committed

to the reconstruction of the facilities in this province which are

necessary to deliver those health-care programs you talked about.

Which government finally got the architects off the track?

MS. BROWN: Off the track, all right. You better believe you got them off the track. You got everybody off the track.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND:

When I came into this office, your Ministry of Health had a

world-famous architect on retainer at $50,000 a month. But was he

building anything? No way. Somebody called the British Columbia Medical

Centre a Taj Mahal, but I think it was supposed to be the medical

centre for the world. He never built a hospital bed. We scrapped all

those things; I'm proud of that. Now we're rebuilding the Vancouver

General Hospital. We're building the Children's Hospital. We're

rebuilding Grace Hospital. We're building a hospital at UBC, and we're

doubling the output of the medical school so that more of our British

Columbia children can have an education in the medical field. We're

doing that. We're not paying somebody retainers of $50,000 a month.

We're doing it. Which government is that? The Social Credit government.

After

years and years of frustration and delay, which government finally

brought in a comprehensive long-term care program to this province?

That member laughs, but perhaps that member doesn't recall those people

in our province who went through two world wars, and who went through a

Depression, and who had saved all of their lives what little money they

could through those tough times, and t who raised a family — times that

you've never seen, Madam Member — and then had to see their savings all

dribble away to pay $600, $700 or $800 a month for nursing-home care.

Those are the people we're talking about. Do you know how much those

people are paying for their care today? They're paying $6.50 a day.

Which government brought that in? Was it the pious, socially conscious

NDP government? No. They sat on their hands for three and a half years.

The Social Credit government brought in long-term care.

The

people of British Columbia saw through the piety and the phoniness.

They don't accept your scare tactics in attempting to convince the

people of this province that we have anything less than the best

health-care program in this country. For that reason, I oppose this

motion.

MR. HOWARD: After listening to that defensive

display by the minister, if I didn't know better I'd be almost tempted

to bow down to this self-appointed god that we have over there.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN:

Excuse me for a moment, Mr. Member. I wonder if we could all listen to

the member for Skeena. I'm enjoying his comments, and I hope the whole

House can. Please carry on.

MR. HOWARD: I am really

amazed at the unctuousness we have on the Social Credit benches — we

heard it this afternoon as well as this evening — which identifies only

Social Credit with purity, honourableness and honesty, but blasphemes

and decries everything that everybody else has to say. That's not a

very Christian or charitable approach, as far as I'm concerned. As far

as the minister is concerned, it indicates that the blackness of his

heart is still there, and he's trying to cover it up with bombast by

painting everybody else, except his own crowd, in an unkind light.

want to talk about this question of fear in the hearts of people who

are in hospitals. The first impression I got about, striking fear into

the hearts of individuals came from your own Minister of Health. On

January 18 or 19 of this year — or something of that sort — when he

came to Terrace he surprised the whole community by declaring that

Skeenaview Hospital was going to be out in 18 months.

For

those of you who don't know what Skeenaview is, it's a facility where

there are elderly residents who require the full range of hospital care

— extended care, intermediate care, personal care and psychogeriatric

care. I had the opportunity, after the minister had come to Terrace and

made that declaration, of visiting Skeenaview and talking to some of

the people up there. When you see and talk with older people in their

70s and 80s and older, pioneers in this country — people who. yes, went

through the First World War and through the Depression and through the

Second World War that the minister talked about — and when you see them

with tears running down their cheeks and asking the question: "What's

going to happen to us now?".... Talk about striking fear in the hearts

of people! There's the guy who did it on January 18 of this year. He's

sitting as your minister right over there, and he's got the unmitigated

gall to stand up in this House and talk about others doing hat sort of

thing.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Were you in Terrace at that time?

MR. HOWARD: When the minister wants to know where I am at any given time I'll tell him, if it's any of his business.

The

only thing that's before this House right now is whether we should vote

for the salary of the person who would play upon the fears of those

older citizens in that community and in Skeenaview. That, Mr. Chairman,

is a bloody shameful record.

[ Page 822 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. That's unparliamentary, sir. I'll have to ask you to withdraw that word.

MR. HOWARD:

Mr. Speaker, I have no hesitation in doing that. I only apologize to

the minister that the rules prevent me from identifying him for what he

is exactly with respect to care for older people and his cavalier

treatment of them.

Sure, he comes along later and, sure, he

sets up a committee representing people in the community to examine

what's going to happen to this facility at Skeenaview. That committee

certainly came along and made certain recommendations. And the minister

was in Terrace later in April sometime — I don't know the exact date,

but I can get it here if he wants it. That committee made some

recommendations about replacing the buildings that are identified as

Skeenaview with another building, a 40-bed intermediate-care type of

hospital with opportunity for ten outpatients. But that didn't satisfy

the question as to what is going to happen to the other 80 or 90 people

who are residents in Skeenaview, who require care and attention above

and beyond intermediate care. That's still a nagging question with

them. They still say: "What's going to happen to us when Skeenaview as

it's known now is to be phased out?"

The minister made

reference earlier today to an assistant deputy minister — Mrs. Kelly, I

believe, was the person he referred to. Mrs. Kelly — if it's the same

one — wrote to the workers in Skeenaview on May 22, and revived the

fear in the hearts of those older people there as to what's going to

happen to them by reiterating that the phase-down period — as she calls

it in her letter — is expected to be approximately 18 months.

Sure,

they're going to have another new building — at a cost of $1 million, I

believe is what the minister said. It's going to be operated by a

society, as is the facility in Smithers, Bulkley Lodge. There's another

example of older people needing care and attention, and wondering what

was going to happen to them as a result of actions of this minister and

this government.

MR. KEMPF: You're totally wrong.

MR. HOWARD: Oh, my friend says I'm totally wrong.

MR. KEMPF: And I'm no friend.

MR. HOWARD: Well, Mr. Chairman, without you asking me to do it, I'I gladly withdraw that reference to the member for Omineca as a friend.

he feels that it's appropriate to stand up in this House and say

something, instead of chattering away from his seat, then let him do so

at the appropriate time. So far all we hear is a sort of barreling and

chattering on like a monkey yapping for peanuts.

MR. KEMPF: Sit down and I'll tell you about our health care in Terrace.

MR. HOWARD:

All right, you can tell me. In the meantime, have the common courtesy

to listen to what other people have to say without bellowing and

belching like someone who's got indigestion all the time.

Bulkley

Lodge has within it a number of old-timers from the north, a number of

lovely people, many of whom have lived there all their lives. In that

time of their life when they are frail and need additional care, sure,

Bulkley Lodge is there. The member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) knows many

of the people who are in Bulkley Lodge, and so do I. During the course

of the election campaign, in the normal activity of visiting different

groups and different people, I had occasion to drop in at the Bulkley

Lodge and visit the staff and the residents there. I no sooner got in

the door than an elderly lady whom I've known for many, many years was

in the foyer and in the common room at the entrance to Bulkley Lodge. I

said hello to her, she said hello to me, and she said: "Mr. Howard,

they're going to take away our night nurse. " I asked her what she

meant by it, and she reiterated. I said: "Well, I don't know anything

about it, but we'll see what she means.

[Mr. Nicolson in the chair.]

asked different people, asked some of the staff and so on, and it was

then that I discovered that that's very day Bulkley Lodge had received

the word from Victoria that the amount of money allotted to them would

be $30.10 per patient a day or something of that sort. The

administrator of the hospital felt that as a result of that, a

budgetary approval far below what he had anticipated, he would have to

lay off somewhere between three and five positions, and one of them was

contemplated to be the night nurse. That word was spread throughout

Bulkley Lodge by the residents themselves, talking one with the other.

There

was no indication of the NDP saying anything, but an automatic fearful

response about nursing care and attention in their hours of sleep

brought about because this government, niggardly in its approach,

arbitrary in its approach, had said to Bulkley Lodge administrators:

"$30.10 a day, period — like it or lump it. " And there has been a

raging discussion in the community about that ever since.

raised the matter during the estimates of the Premier. At that time he

said: "Yes, a meeting will be held." I understand that a meeting has

been held between the administrator of the lodge — and I don't know if

the minister was at the meeting, but certainly the administrator of

Bulkley Lodge came here to Victoria and he talked with officials in the

ministry at least. I don't know what came about as a result of that

particular meeting, but there is another example, another instance, of

a facility serving older residents of this province establishing in

their mind and in their emotion a fearful state, because they were not

sure what was going to happen to them and what was going to happen to

the care and attention that they should normally expect to receive.

That's upsetting.

People who are in an acute-care hospital

for acute purposes — people in their younger or their middle years —

normally are able to withstand indications of that nature, concerns

about whether or not the hospital treatment and the health care that

they're entitled to is going to be of a sufficient standard and up to

par. But when people get older, when they become more frail, when they

require the care and attention and love and affection that should be

available to them, when they are faced with the unknown and the

uncertainty about that care and attention, there is a tendency for them

to feel much, much more upset. I'I never

[ Page

823 ]

forgot

having someone with tears in their eyes, with tears streaming down

their cheeks, after the minister had been to Terrace that time and said

Skeenaview was going to be closed, asking me what was going to happen

to them. I couldn't answer the question because the hit-and-run

minister had come and gone like a flash....

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: You weren't there.

MR. HOWARD:

The minister keeps yapping on about something that I can't hear. I

don't really know what it is, but maybe he'll stand up and say what it

is. All I'm trying to point out to this House is that all that oily

superciliousness that we heard a while ago is just a lot of bunk and

doesn't fit the facts of the situation. It doesn't fit the facts of the

situation when you come to talk about those people who are in

Skeenaview and those people who are in Bulkley Lodge.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

MR. KEMPF:

I wasn't going to stand and enter into this debate, but after having

listened to the bunk and the innuendo and the lies coming from that

side of the floor....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! All three words must be withdrawn.

MR. KEMPF:

I withdraw that, Mr. Chairman, and I'll change it to untruths. Sit down,

Mr. Member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke). You've been up all day.

Give us a chance, Let the backbenchers talk; we'll talk. You bet we'll

talk.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order. Mr. Member for Omineca, all three words must be withdrawn, please.

MR. KEMPF: If those words are offensive to the member for New Westminster, I'll withdraw.

MR. CHAIRMAN: They're offensive to the Chair. Will you withdraw those words?

MR. KEMPF: I'I withdraw those words, yes.

didn't rise this evening to enter into a verbal debate with members on

the opposite side of the floor, but after hearing from the member for

Skeena (Mr. Howard), who spent the last two years living in Quebec then

came piously to this House to speak of the health-care system in the

province of British Columbia, I had to get up.

Interjections.

MR. KEMPF: Mr. Chairman, would you please bring those members over there to order so that I can speak?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to call all members to order. The member for Omineca has the floor.

MR. KEMPF: Mr. Chairman, I got up this evening and it was hard for me

to do so, because I'd like to tell you of a personal experience that I had.

The members opposite talk about fear. Well, they don't know what real fear

is, because real fear is when you find that you have a loved one who really

is going to have to be dependent upon a system such as the health-care system

in British Columbia.

want to tell you a story this evening, and I want to say again that it

is very difficult for me to tell this story. But it has to be told in

support of a Health minister and in support of an administration that

has spent a great deal of time and taxpayers' money looking after the

people of British Columbia with one of the best health-care systems in

the world.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. KEMPF:

This story starts, would you believe, about two and a half months ago,

during an election campaign. My wife found that she had a swelling on

the right side of her neck, and it was getting larger. She didn't want

to bring any problems to me at that time. Having to fight an election

campaign, she didn't want me to have any more worries than I was having

at the time.

I insisted that she go to a local doctor, which

she did. She was immediately told to see a specialist in Prince George.

Please understand that we live 180 miles from Prince George, which is

the largest local centre with a fairly large hospital with the

facilities needed to look into her particular problem.

investigating the possible problem that my wife had, the specialist

there immediately put her into the Prince George Regional Hospital

where she underwent an operation to find out exactly what the swelling

in her neck was.

After that surgery, and subsequent to

spending a week in that hospital, she was told that she had Hodgkin 's

disease. For those members who don't know what that is, it's cancer of

the lymph glands. On May 13, this year, she was admitted to the A.

Maxwell Evans Cancer Clinic in Vancouver where she underwent a week of

very intensive testing and consequently spent another week in that

clinic. To complete that testing she returned on June 11, last month,

to that hospital to have abdominal surgery to find out exactly how far

this disease, this cancer, had progressed. She is now here in Victoria,

taking cobalt treatments at Royal Jubilee Hospital.

Mr.

Chairman, I've given you a bit of this background just to instil in

your mind the fact that I have gone through the system in the last two

and a half months.

The members opposite talked about fear.

They don't know what fear is, because they've had nothing to do with

the system. They talk about the health-care programs....

Interjection.

MR. KEMPF: Mr. Member, I would be quiet if I were you. Have you ever been in one of our hospitals?

MR. BARBER: I am a patient at the cancer clinic, you dunce!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. KEMPF: Then you know what I'm talking about.

MR. CHAIRMAN:

The Chair recognizes that this is a very sensitive and, at this point,

personal discussion. But could we please maintain respect in this House

and also

[ Page 824 ]

continue our comments with regard to the administrative actions of the ministry?

MR. KEMPF:

As I said before, it is very difficult for me to get up this evening

and tell this story, but it had to be told. Through the whole system,

from the time that my wife saw a local doctor to the time that she was

referred to Prince George Regional Hospital, to the week that she spent

in the cancer clinic in Vancouver and subsequently the Vancouver

General Hospital, and now the Royal Jubilee Hospital here in Victoria,

never once in that two and a half months did either she or myself see

anything lacking in the health-care system of this province. There were

many more in her particular circumstance who went through those

particular facilities at the same time. Never once was there anything

lacking in the health-care system or in the service that she obtained

from that system in this province.

During my visits to those

facilities, I talked to many of the doctors — many very good doctors —

and many nurses, and never once did I find one that had anything bad to

say about the healthcare system in this province. Never once did I hear

any one of them say that they were not receiving from the government

what was needed for them to give the proper services to the people of

the province.

I would like to tell you another story that

took place at the same time as my wife and I were having these problems

in the last two and a half months. On May 11, one day after the

election in this province, my father had a stroke and has since that

time been in a coma in another one of our health facilities, the Canyon

Hospital at Hope. I have spent many hours in that facility, talking to

the people that work there and the people looking after my father while

he is in that coma. Again, for the information of the members opposite,

never once have I seen or heard of any lack of funds or anything else,

for that matter, in the provision of the necessary services to the

people of this province.

I just thought that this very

personal story had to be told this evening. I'm sick and tired of

sitting here and listening to the innuendo — the member didn't want me

to call them lies. They have seen the untruths that we've heard and

untruths that we not only heard but saw in print in their Mickey Mouse

advertisements and their Walt Disney advertisements on television

during the election campaign. I would just like to say that all I can

do is speak from experience.

MR. PASSARELL: I've some

concerns about the health service in the north, and specifically in my

constituency. During this talk tonight, I'm going to intersperse it

with some of the quotes the minister made this afternoon.

The first quote is: "The sincere commitment to one of the best health-care

systems in the western world...." Well I'm pleased the minister is

going to Atlin next month. I think he's going to Dease Lake, Eddontenajon,

and down south to see first-hand the neglected health care services we have

in our constituency — which is in the western world.

the minister would like, I could set up some meetings for him up in the

constituency. I know the organization's pretty poor up there, but some

of our party workers could set up some kind of a meeting for him if he

would like.

I have two concerns about two communities in health care — the first one's

Dease Lake. Dease Lake is the third-largest community in our constituency, and

there's no hospital there. It's only 300 people. I don't think there

should be a hospital there, but I think there should be a first-aid station.

You can't even buy an aspirin in Dease Lake if the man who operates the

only store goes out fishing, or if he's gone on holidays. The people of

Dease Lake have no medical facility. If somebody in Dease Lake gets hurt, they

have to go up to a first aid station in Cassiar, which can be a three- to four-hour

drive — if the road's in good condition. For a number of years the people

have asked the minister if some type of arrangement could be made for a first-aid

station of some sort to be set up to help the people. I'm speaking of the

300 people who are totally isolated when it comes to health care.

The

second community I'd like to talk about is Cassiar. Cassiar is the

largest community in our constituency. It has a first-aid station

operated by a private company, Cassiar mine. The people who live around

Cassiar have to use the first-aid station for their health needs. In

many senses, the first-aid station leaves a lot to be desired when it

comes to health-care services. If you're sick, and can afford it, you

don't take health-care services in B.C. You go to Whitehorse, Yukon, or

you fly to Edmonton, Alberta, if you can afford it, to receive proper

medical attention.

Another quote. "If there are any easy

answers, they would be in place," the minister said this afternoon. I

think there's an easy answer for the neglected health-care service we

have up there: put in some type of a medical facility, a first-aid

station, in Dease Lake. I can see that the minister is concerned about

this — and the people up there. I certainly hope he comes back into the

House.

At the present time the federal government and

private companies provide the majority of medical services in

northwestern B.C. They provide more of a medical service than the

province does. In a sense, we're getting the short end of the deal. We

pay the same taxes. We have sales tax up there. We pay the same

provincial income tax, but we receive less in service when it comes to

health care.

The minister said hospitals are an essential

service. Well, what about the north? We should have a public hospital

in Cassiar. It has 1,500 people. If you take in the surrounding

communities, that goes up to 2,500.

The minister also said:

"We will not run away from medical problems facing us, but have a

realistic approach. " Well, Mr. Chairman, what is it? How much more

realistic can you be to provide medical facilities for people who have

nothing now? Is it unrealistic to build a first-aid station for people

who have no health services?

Another aspect that has to be taken into consideration is trained personnel.

The minister this afternoon mentioned "the use of nurse practitioners in

rural areas...." This might be one benefit that could be used in the Atlin

constituency. It would be nice, too, to get some trained Canadian doctors to

come into the constituency and into the north to work.

The

Minister of Education provides housing for teachers who go up into the

north. But doctors who go up into the north are often left to find

accommodation for themselves. I think if something could be arranged to

provide some type of proper housing for doctors who come up, they would

stay longer than two or three months in the north.

One of

the major problems facing the health services in the north is the

problem between the federal government — that being Indian Affairs —

and the province. At the present time they're not working together. I

would like to see them

[ Page

825 ]

work closer together to help alleviate the problems we're facing up there.

an example, a doctor has to come from Vancouver to Eddontenajon, a

small community that is mainly native. He gets a fee for services as a

doctor, and in the two or three days that he's at Eddontenajon he will

see between 100 and 150 patients, if he's lucky. One man, one doctor

has to confront 150 people who haven't seen a doctor for many months.

What happens to a patient if your number is 70 and above? You have to

go to see a doctor who has been working for three days straight, who

has been having his dinner and lunch inside the little room that's

provided for him to provide medical services. The man becomes

overworked, he becomes depressed, and he doesn't provide the proper

medical services to these people.

I have another quote I'd

like to state from the minister this afternoon: "Every member of this

House should be proud of the health program of this province." I'm not

going to speak about the province, but personally, I'm not proud of the

health services that are being provided in Atlin. We have to drive in

the dead of winter to Cassiar, if we have a medical problem, because in

the other communities there is nothing. There is not a public health

nurse, because she's also stationed in Cassiar. You drive in the dead

of winter maybe four or five hours with a child who is sick and find

that the doctor has gone for the weekend, or he's on holidays. Another

problem is to see people in critical condition who have to wait for the

air ambulance service. As I stated two weeks ago, a friend of mine who

was in critical condition had to wait eleven and a half hours to get

flown to Vancouver.

The minister stated today that the air

ambulance service is taking up to eight patients a day, and I'd like to

see the air ambulance service work and become a positive thing. I think

it can be, but I'd like to see something set up, perhaps an auxiliary

air service. At the present time, when the air service comes to Atlin,

it has to land in the Yukon at Watson Lake. People who are sick in B.C.

have to be driven on pretty poor roads up to the airport to be picked

up by the government jet.

In the community that I live in,

Good Hope Lake, which is a highway maintenance camp, there's a

regulation that says the Ministry of Highways cannot provide an

ambulance service for the people if they live less than 25 miles from a

first-aid station. Good Hope Lake is about 24.87 miles from Cassiar.

We're not entitled to an ambulance, and it's not like driving 25 miles

from here to Sooke and getting in there in a half hour or so. Driving

on that road, it can take you an hour or an hour and a half to go 25

miles. One of the problems the native people face in Good Hope Lake is

that there is no proper ambulance service. They have to find somebody

to give them a ride into Cassiar, and if they're hurt, sometimes these

people have to put up $50 to find someone to start their truck to take

them in.

There is a need to start a proper medical service

for the north, and the needs of the north have to be met when it comes

to medical services. I was looking at the

summary of the estimates

here, and one of the problems that we face, being small, is that

there's not enough money. But going through some of the estimates here,

I see $12 million allocated for an Alcohol and Drug Commission; $2

million for computer charges. There is an increase in health promotion

and information to $2,400,000; $36,000 for advertisement and

publication for Alcohol and Drug

Commission; $1 million for

new motor vehicles. But there is not a penny to Dease Lake to provide

medical services. The member for North Okanagan (Mrs. Jordan) spoke

earlier about the tier system in Europe. There's a tier system when it

comes to health services in Atlin, when native people must be

classified as second-class citizens. Since they do not have money to

pay for rides, because in many communities there are no health

services, they have to pay private individuals to take them to a

hospital somewhere even if it's in Whitehorse, Cassiar, or down to

Terrace. The minister talks of the cost of medical services as not

always being the main factor. Then why doesn't he develop proper and

humane medical services to the people of northwestern B.C.? There is a

need for these health services, and there's no excuse for the Minister

of Health in not providing basic and humane medical services to the

people of the north.

MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, I

too was somewhat reluctant to be involved in the debate this evening,

but I think there are some things that perhaps ought to be brought home

to the House.

MR, COCKE: Like what?

MR. HEINRICH:

Well, to the hon. member for New Westminster, you show, the usual style

— men like ships when lost in the fog make the most noise.

thought that perhaps I would read something from the regional hospital

administrator for Prince George. It arrived in the mail today. There

are a lot of things that have been said. But, you know, the Prince

George Regional Hospital has, ever since I arrived in Prince George 15

years ago, been under constant construction and reconstruction. We've

had our problems for a long, long time: but it takes a lot of money,

and we've been successful.

I have just one comment from this particular letter:

"Since

the time that we've moved into phase two of our building program, which

basically encompasses completion of facilities to provide a regional

referral centre of approximately 500 beds...."

Interjection.

MR. HEINRICH: Well, we're moving towards that; we're moving well.

And he says:

"Summarizing briefly our

construction activity, I believe it accurate to say that plans are

developing well and that, in accordance with the minister's response to

our brief last year, the government has been working positively with us

to accelerate the completion of our regional facility. We will

certainly keep you advised of developments. "

He goes on in

his letter, Mr. Chairman, to say this: "There is one problem which we

have and it involves parking." I mentioned earlier, when I first spoke

in this House, that there was a problem with an operating deficit. But

I notice in the letter that there was something like threequarters of a

million dollars sent to the hospital, and that has helped eliminate

most of that deficit. And that was a commitment which was made.

[ Page 826 ]

You

know, in the last two and a half to three years in our area we have

seen an extended-care unit completed, a health clinic which will be

completed in the fall, and we're presently undertaking an addition for

surgery and radiology in the Prince George Regional Hospital. The total

cost is something like $24 million.

There are certain things

that we don't have and we hope that we will get, but they take funds as

well — one of which is a renal dialysis machine. Of course, there are

people in our area who have to leave Prince George and perhaps reside

in the lower mainland to receive proper treatment. But one of these

days we'll receive it. Last week when I was home the CAT scanner had

arrived. It takes a long time and it takes a lot of community activity

to raise the funds for it, but it does happen.

I have to

commend the minister. We have had an excellent relationship over the

last three years, and he's done an excellent job. I thought that it

would perhaps lend some credibility to my comments if I had a letter

from the regional administrator of the hospital. I'I just conclude with

one comment, something I have believed for a long, long time. A social

conscience is not the private preserve of the members opposite.

MR. BARBER:

As my colleague for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) has pointed out, this

is the one and only motion of non-confidence to be presented by the

official opposition this session. It is the only one because it

indicates, in as serious a way as we can, the very serious criticisms

we have of this minister's performance. It is the traditional way in

the British system to register the displeasure of the official

opposition at the performance of any minister. And it's not usually

undertaken lightly. If it is, it loses its weight, it loses its

authority. Done too often or too frivolously, it no longer has any

meaning in the parliamentary sense.

One minister only this

session is the subject of a non-confidence motion, because it isn't

simply the official opposition who lacks confidence in this minister. A

great many health professionals, medical professionals and persons

involved in the provision of quality health care in British Columbia

have also lost confidence in this Minister of Health. If it was only

the official opposition that had no respect for his performance, it

might be reasonable to discredit or disallow or ignore the criticisms

of the official opposition. That would be fair — it's politics, it's

partisan, it's expected, maybe. But it's not just the official

opposition. It is literally dozens upon dozens of health professionals

who, for the first time in their careers, have made public and

political statements condemning Social Credit for what they've done to

health care.

Medicine is principally and traditionally a

conservative profession. Very few medical practitioners, I expect, have

been active in politics at any time in their careers; if so, I doubt

very much they've been active in a left-wing party. That would surprise

me a great deal; it's a very conservative profession. But we have seen

in this last year, for the first time in many years in this province —

certainly in my own short life of experience in this province — medical

professionals, nurses and people in the health community who also join

us in moving non-confidence in this minister.

Let me

illustrate. When the medical staff at the Royal Jubilee Hospital,

having never before done such a thing, take out an advertisement at

their own expense in the daily newspapers and condemn this government,

that minister and his cutbacks, and go on as well to warn their own

patients, "Watch out, we can no longer guarantee health care," what

does that mean? What mark of confidence is that by the medical

profession in this minister? It is no mark of confidence at all. Were

those physicians from Royal Jubilee Hospital here tonight in this

Legislature, they'd be voting for us in favour of this motion.

When

in the Memorial Pavilion, formerly the Veterans' Pavilion, of the Royal

Jubilee Hospital, registered nurses are replaced by licensed practical

nurses because they don't have the budget to provide the quality care

that only registered nurses can provide, what sign of confidence is

that in this minister and his cutbacks? If those registered nurses were

here tonight in this House, they'd be voting for this motion as well.

They have no confidence.

I had a registered nurse from the

Memorial Pavilion come to my office a couple of weeks ago. She formerly

had 32 patients under her care; she now has 61. That woman has lost

confidence in that ministry and the person occupying its chair. She

can't do the job that is expected of her. It was tough enough to do the

job she wanted to do when she was responsible for 32 elderly patients;

she is now responsible for 61. If that isn't a cutback in care as a

result of budget constraints, what is? Does the word "cutback" mean

anything to this government? If that isn't a cutback, there are never

any cutbacks and the word has no meaning. It is a cutback, care has

been reduced, and if that registered nurse were here tonight she would

be voting with us.

The announcements that the minister makes

from time to time, his grandiose announcements about improvements to

the physical plant.... When are these announcements made, and for what

purpose? Was it or was it not a coincidence that the former first

member for Victoria announced, during the campaign, seven days before

the election, a $35 million renovation program at the Royal Jubilee

Hospital? Maybe it was just a happy coincidence which was not intended

to shore up his failing political fortunes. Maybe, in fact, it was a

typically cynical ploy of that minister in whom the people of Victoria,

by the way they voted, have lost confidence. Those who could be here.

tonight, those who voted for us and saw through the sham and the

charade of this much-announced improvement, might wonder about the

politics behind it. They, too, have lost confidence in this minister.

When

the staff of the Glengarry Hospital for the first time ever walked off

their jobs weeks ago, protesting cuts, working conditions and the

problems they have doing the job they want to do, in which minister

were they demonstrating confidence — this one? Were they demonstrating

confidence in his cuts, his constraints, his budget limits? Hardly.

Those staff are committed to quality care; they are committed in a

highly professional and disciplined way to doing the best job they can

for their patients. They were moved to the point where they walked out

one afternoon. Does the minister take that as a sign of confidence in

his policies? He shouldn't. We don't. They don't either. If they were

here they would be voting to support this resolution; they have no

confidence in this minister either.

The board of directors

of the Victoria General Hospital, including the government appointees,

voted unanimously to condemn the stupid and artificial budget

restraints of that minister — unanimously, including the government's

own members on the board. Why did they do that? Did they do it

[ Page 827 ]

because

they think this is the finest minister B.C. has ever had, that his

policies are generous and decent and fair, practical, workable and

responsible? Or did they do it because they're having a tough time

guaranteeing, here in the capital city, first-class treatment, care and

medical services for the people who have been entrusted to their care

while they stay as patients in that hospital?

Did they take

such a step lightly? Hardly. They knew what happened at the Vancouver

General Hospital. The minister dismissed the whole board. In fact, the

chairman of the board of Victoria General Hospital, Mr. Patterson, who

is hardly a New Democrat, if you know him in Victoria — he's a

well-respected man who has got nothing to do with our party or any

other to my knowledge — himself said: "Look, if you don't respect the

position we've taken and our refusal to abide by your stupid and

dangerous cuts, then get rid of us and appoint your own board. Because

we, in conscience, will not go along with the heartless cuts that are

being imposed, through us, by the Social Credit government. "

Did

they do that lightly? Did they do that irresponsibly? If so, fire the

board. Tell the people that they're lying. Tell the board of Victoria

General Hospital that they're making it up. Tell the doctors at the

Royal Jubilee Hospital, who took out an advertisement condemning the

Social Credit Party, that they are lying too. It is reasonable enough,

I suppose, that you accused the former Minister of Health of lying.

Would you have the guts to accuse the same doctors who say the same

thing at Victoria General Hospital and Royal Jubilee Hospital? Are you

going to call them liars? Would you have the guts to do out there,

unprotected by the provisions regarding libel, what you are protected

by in this House?

The doctors and the board at one major

hospital and the doctors at another unanimously, publicly and

repeatedly have condemned this minister and his government for their

cuts in health care. Now either they're fibbing — either they're

engaged in some vast commie plot — or maybe it's just possible they're

telling the truth about what it really means to live with a 5 percent

ceiling, revised to 7.5 for election purposes some months later. I have

a document; I'll be willing to table it. It was written on April 25 of

this year written by Mr. Worthington, director of financial services,

addressed to Mr. Morrison, executive director of Gorge Road Hospital.

This document has not been previously released. This document, an

internal memo at the hospital, describes what it's been like for one

hospital in Victoria to try to live with the stupid and artificial

restraints, the totally unrealistic and unnecessary restraints, on

hospital budgeting here in Victoria.

I want to talk about

what it's been like for these guys to try to live with this Minister of

Health. In

section 2 of this document, which is a memo again from the

director of financial services to the executive director of the

hospital, he talks about how they can obtain — by cuts in service —

such relief from financial obligations as to reduce their deficit. He

talks in a practical way about what it means to live with 5 percent or,

now, 7.5 percent. I'll table the whole document, if the minister wishes.

Here is what he says on page 2:

"Our hospital revised budget projects expenditures of

$8,585,530, but we have several very viable program changes that can

provide some financial relief. These program changes are:

And here is what they've had to do, thanks to this Minister of Health:

Activation: staff reduced from three professionals and nine licensed

practical nurses to five professionals and four LPNs. This could be

fully operative by September '79 and, consequently, we might be able

to save one-half of the annual projection: $20,000.

Now if

the committee is aware, the activation unit at Gorge Road is one of the

principal treatment instruments used by that really very first-class

long-term care hospital, a hospital that attempts to deal with people

who've been very severely disabled, some of whom are permanent

residents there, others of whom are in for months and months as the

result of accidents or disease of some sort of another. The activation

program is one the principal medical means of helping these people

restore their vitality and their lives and their limbs. The activation

program is most important. What do they do because of Social Credit?

They have to cut it. Here is the memo from the administrator, proposing

how they have to cut it to live within his cuts. And the minister tells

us there have been no reductions.

b) The dietary department

— here is what they're doing in there. He proposes a reduction in hours

of dietitians, also reduced shift positions for food-line production.

This could be in effect by mid-July '79. Consequently we could effect

three-quarters of annual savings for a total of $15,000.

Nursing cuts at the George Road Hospital — the minister tells us there

have been no cutbacks. He advises a reduction of CSR operation and

reduced hours attributable to nursing supervision — reduction of the

nursing supervision — approximately three-quarters of the annual

projected reduction could be recognized this year for a saving of

$15,000.

He goes on and on to list further reductions in

staff in the field of social workers, speech therapy, activation,

rehabilitation assessment, driver training and decrease in other

expenses, including laboratory work, X-ray work, purchase service and

laundry-purchase service.

The total anticipated savings, as

proposed on April 25 of this year by Mr. Worthington, are in the order

of $74,500. However, he goes on to propose other attempts to deal with

the stupid and artificial restraints imposed by Social Credit this is

on page 3. He goes on to comment:

"Also there

are always delays in rehiring employees, which provides for some

economy of savings. This saving is never built into the budget, but it

is very difficult to guesstimate."

He's

hoping, obviously,

now from the quote, of course, to effect further delays in order to

further reduce their obligations because of the impossible-to-live-with

cuts and restraints imposed by Social Credit. However, he goes on

to propose cuts in sick time and WCB relief. This is one honest

administrator trying to live within the rules imposed by Social Credit.

Here is what he proposed on April 25 of this year:

"Every

effect is being made to reduce relief-paid hours for sick time and WCB

cases. A policy governing relief-paid hours is in the planning stage,

but it should be pointed out that, due to the many types of flu going

around, accompanied by the everyday illnesses, it is almost impossible

to monitor the situation and at the same time budget for a reasonable

savings in salary and wages."

[ Page 828 ]

The

next page of the memorandum is the most pathetic explanation yet of

what it's like to deal with budget cuts under Social Credit. Imagine a

first-class administrator — and Mr. Worthington certainly is — in this

province being reduced to make the following comment:

"At

a meeting held in Vancouver two weeks ago, the Hon. Bob McClelland,

Minister of Health, informed the BCHA and hospital boards and senior

hospital staff that existing deficit '78-'79 would be picked up in

part, or in whole, depending how far $10 million would stretch.

Hopefully, we will be one of the fortunate ones and our deficit will be

reduced."

How can these people run a hospital when they have to go

begging, cap in hand, to this group, hoping and praying that "we will

be one of the fortunate ones, and our deficit will be reduced."?

The

minister has announced another policy, of course, realizing at long

last that the heartlessness and ruthlessness of these cutbacks has

impaired the political popularity of Social Credit. He's got a new

policy: now he's going to pick up all the deficits, as soon as he finds

out what they are. But since last November conscientious administrators

in British Columbia, writing memos like this to one another, have given

the lie to what the Minister of Health has been saying all day. There

have been cuts. Here's the proof of them. Do you want more proof? My

colleagues will provide it.

There have been cuts that have

endangered health care in British Columbia. The Gorge Road Hospital is

cutting staff. With any luck, such staff as have been let go might be

rehired in the next while if we, by virtue of this debate, and I the

public, by virtue of their pressure, can persuade this group of

skinflints to spend the kind of money they should in order to provide

quality health care in British Columbia.

We live in hope

that these kinds of proposals won't become real. This in fact is what

one hospital, well administered and well respected in the health

community, was reduced to getting ready for, thanks to what this

government does.

In mid-November Social Credit imposed a 5

percent budget ceiling on allowable increases for the fiscal year in

which we now find ourselves. The ceiling then was totally naive and

unrealistic, because inflation was carrying the cost of running a

hospital to 9 and 10 percent. The cost of salaries, wage settlements

arbitrated, supplies and other materials was running at well above 5

percent. Surely even this minister wouldn't pretend that Social Credit

has reduced inflation to less than 5 percent in British Columbia. When

they introduced it, it was stupid and wrong. It would not work; it

could not work; it has not worked. But it has resulted in the most

massive attack on Social Credit from the health community in British

Columbia that we've ever seen: paid ads, doctors going on hot-line

shows, people walking off their jobs, staff writing letters to the

editor attacking this government for its cuts.

This 5

percent ceiling — now 7.5 — has, reduced and endangered the quality of

health care in British Columbia, period. Pure and simple. When costs

are going up 8, 9 and 10 percent, and you only allow 5 or 7.5 percent,

what else can they do? They reduce service — that's what they do.

The

policies of this minister betray more vividly than do those of any

other minister the utter heartlessness of this coalition. Were the

policy of 5 percent imposed on all ministries of government, then it

might be a bit easier to understand. Were Social Credit's commitment to

reduce the cost of all government matters in British Columbia genuine

and universal and not simply applied to health care, it would be a

little harder to debate the point.

Unfortunately that is not

true. When it comes to the Ministry of Transportation, Communications

and Highways, there's no 5 percent limit and there's no 10 percent

limit. Do you want to know what happened last year? While they were

busy imposing 5 percent on hospitals, here's what was happening to

Highways. I'I read from the report of the director of financial

services, highways division, at page 209 of this year's annual report

of the Ministry of Transportation, Communications and Highways. Here's

what Social Credit will do for Highways: "The total gross expenditure

of $415 million for the period represents an increase of $136 million

or 48.7 percent over the preceding fiscal period. " That's what they

gave to Highways. They were over their total budget by 48.7 percent

last year. And that's not the only overrun in that ministry.

Interjection.

MR. BARBER:

Do you want to hear more? Here's what their own report says: "The

highway maintenance costs have increased $25 million or 21.4 percent

over the preceding fiscal period." Now for highway maintenance they

found 21.4 percent an allowable increase. For hospitals and human

beings they found 5 percent, thank you very much, as the allowable

increase.

However, the worst overrun of all is in the field

of highway construction. Here's what they do. Mr. Price, director of

financial services, says: "Highway construction. Capital costs have

greatly increased, due to an expanded highway construction program,

resulting in an increase of $101 million or 64.5 percent over the

preceding fiscal period."

Now what does that demonstrate

about the real commitment of Social Credit? Apparently it demonstrates

that Highways can have anything they want anytime they want it.

Hospitals. What do they get? Five percent. Highways are allowed 48.7

percent, 21.4 percent and 64.5 percent overruns, over expenditure, over

the budget. That's what Social Credit does for Highways. Who can have

confidence in a minister who imposes a 5 percent ceiling on health

care, while his colleague over expends his budget by 48.7 percent?

this minister had any conscience and knowing what was going on in his

own government, he would have resigned. No minister of conscience would

have put up with these increases for highways while he could only get 5

percent for hospitals. But he has seen fit not to resign. Any

government that cares more about highways than they care about human

beings, and allow greater increases in highways, should resign. They

have no decent conscience. They have no decent respect for the priority

that health care must be paid. They have no decent understanding of the

simple fact that in today's civilization human beings just maybe are a

little more important than highways — just maybe they account for a

little more in the long run of things. Social Credit will do anything

at all and pay anything at all anytime they wish for highways. These

ridiculous and ruthless 5 percent restrictions on health care are

totally unacceptable to this or any other opposition.

[ Page 829 ]

The

only non-confidence motion of this session is more than amply justified

by all of the documentation that has been presented so far and will be

presented in the next several hours. This minister stands condemned by

a medical profession that for the first time has gone political and

public, taking out ads at their own expense. The minister stands

condemned by patients who have personally been the victim of staff

cuts. They can't get into the hospitals or once they're in they can't

see the nurses the way they used to. Where they used to see an RN, they

now see an LPN; or where they used to see an LPN, they now see an

orderly.

This minister stands condemned by health staff who

have been laid off in hospital after hospital after hospital across

British Columbia. The minister finally stands condemned in this motion

by any decent person who supports guaranteed health care in British

Columbia. The motion should pass because the facts are clear. The

motion should pass because the priority this government gives to

highways is 20 times greater than what they give to human beings who

need health care. The motion should pass and I pray it does.

MR. HYNDMAN:

Mr. Chairman, we've just heard some comment about the question of

priorities. I think this government's and this minister's question of

priority for health care is well reflected in a budget that sees Health

ranked as the number one priority with the spending of $1.2 billion.

The fact is, Mr. Chairman, that this government places health care as

the number one priority and spends more money on health care than any

other ministry in the government.

There are some problems in

health care that are common to all jurisdictions, as we've heard today.

It's interesting if we're to consider a motion of non-confidence in the

minister — to perhaps judge his policies and his actions on a

comparative basis by looking elsewhere.

If you look next

door to oil-rich Alberta, you will find something very interesting, Mr.

Chairman. We've heard a lot from the official opposition about

constraints and cutbacks, and it's interesting that in oil-rich Alberta

there is a ceiling on permitted hospital expenditure increases. Isn't

it interesting, Mr. Chairman, that the challenge in 1979 of grappling

with health-care costs by government is so great that even oil-rich

Alberta has to consider limits on spending in the health-care field.

Alberta is 7.5 percent — 7 percent on supplies, 8 percent on salaries.

seems to me that if we are to consider a motion of non-confidence in

this minister and look comparatively at other jurisdictions to see the

kind of job he is doing.... I think the fair-minded public would agree

that across this continent all levels of government face the difficult

challenge of how to deal with skyrocketing health-care costs. Even

oil-rich Alberta has to consider the imposition of ceilings at the rate

of 7.5 percent. I think a minister who is doing his best to grapple

with the problem and comes up with a formula that compares favourably

with that is to be commended for doing a pretty good job at a difficult

time.

I'm sure we'd all love it if government had unlimited

resources and a blank cheque book to keep writing the cheques for all

the needs in health care. It would be great if we could, but there has

to be some effort, I think, by government to put some practical limit

on a budget on how far government can go.

We're now

considering a motion of non-confidence in this minister. I am

observing, Mr. Chairman, first of all, that this minister has seen to

it — and he's battled his way through Treasury Board and budget

preparation — that health is the number one priority of this

government. That is a fact. Secondly. at a time when even oil-rich

Alberta is having to place a 7.5 percent limitation on growth in

hospital spending. If in British Columbia there's a limitation, and it

too is 7.5 percent, that sounds to me like the minister is doing a

pretty good job of dealing with a pretty challenging difficulty.

There

are some other things we take for granted in the question of health

care in British Columbia. I think they're worth pointing out, because a

motion of non-confidence has been placed on this minister. It's a

serious motion, and I think British Columbians, if they're being asked

to consider whether this House lacks confidence in this minister,

should pause and take stock of what we in British Columbia enjoy in

terms of our health-care delivery system. There's no extra billing for

doctors' services in British Columbia; there is in virtually every

other province of Canada today. What has happened is that in most other

provinces doctors are now sending out a premium or extra or special

billing to the patient for the service rendered to the patient over and

above what is normally picked up by medicare. That's not happening in

British Columbia today, Mr. Chairman. Our citizens are not subject to

extra billing or premium billing. Once again, they certainly are next

door now in oil-rich Alberta, and they are in many other provinces.

Mr.

Chairman, if we pause and take stock, we can, I think, give thanks to a

minister who has seen to it that hospital service in this province is

not going to be impaired by the fact or the threat of strikes. I think

it does a great deal for the peace of mind of people in hospitals, or

relatives and close friends of those in hospitals, to know that they're

not going to have to worry or consider the prospect of what happens if

there is a strike or a threat of a strike in a hospital. That's not

going to happen in British Columbia, thanks to this minister.

You

know, we hear a lot in other provinces about doctors opting out of

medicare, doctors leaving the system, doctors leaving the country. Once

again, in virtually every other province in this country, Mr. Chairman,

doctors are resigning from and opting out of the provincial medicare

systems, and there are predictions in those provinces of grave crises

to come in health care.

The fact is, Mr. Chairman, in

British Columbia — thanks to the job this minister is doing — not a

single doctor has opted out of our provincial medicare system. That is

important enough to have been a front-page, special

article in the

Toronto Globe and Mail about two months ago. The

article

addressed itself to this fact: why is it British Columbia is the only

province where the doctors are not opting out? The answer given was

that for doctors, British Columbia has got the best medical-care system

in Canada; it's the best place to practise.

If somebody

suggests the question should be considered of whether this House, this

province, lacks confidence in the minister.... If we pause and take

stock, I think the facts are these, Mr. Chairman: we have a minister

who has seen to it that health is the number one spending priority of

the government. That's a fact. This government spends more money on

health care than on any other ministry or department. Health care is

number one. That's a result of

[ Page 830 ]

the

work the minister has done in cabinet and in Treasury Board. It's his

work, and he's responsible for the fact that health care is the number

one priority of this government.

He's also responsible for

the fact that our hospitals are open, they are functioning, and they

are neither strikebound nor threatened to be strikebound. He's also

responsible for the fact that British Columbians, unique in Canada, do

not face the worry of doctors opting out of medicare. He's also

responsible for the important fact that British Columbia citizens do

not face the burden of extra billing or premium billings from doctors.

That's a pretty impressive record, Mr. Chairman, if we stop and take

stock of the things we enjoy.

There's something else that's

important about hospitals in this province, Mr. Chairman. This motion

of no confidence goes to the minister, and it also goes to the

government, because it's motion of no confidence in the minister and

the ministry which is the number one priority of this government.

Our

hospitals enjoy ample and adequate power with which to operate. That's

something we take for granted in British Columbia. We don't know

brownouts and we don't know blackouts, but let me tell you, lots of

people in eastern Canada who have been in hospital have known some very

anxious moments during power shortages, brownouts and blackouts. That's

something we've never had to worry about in B.C. This minister is part

of a cabinet responsible for power policy in this province and, thanks

to the energy policy of this province, our citizens don't face the

worry or the prospect of what a shortage of power might do to the

capacity of hospitals to operate.

I think the report card is

pretty impressive, Mr. Chairman, if you want to take stock. At a time

when every government in this continent is having to do something about

skyrocketing health costs, we're comparing pretty favourably with

Alberta as to the degree to which we can go to allow some increases in

expenditure and yet have some protection for the public purse.

The

kinds of problems they've seen in Ontario, in this whole area of the

developing costs in the health-care field.... In Ontario many of these

issues are now being settled in the courts, if you can believe it.

There was a case recently where a hospital board and the Minister of

Health were engaged in a court action in the Supreme Court of Ontario

as to whether or not a court order would issue to reopen a hospital. In

this province, we haven't, fortunately, had to become embroiled in that

kind of regrettable controversy, and again that goes to the approach

being taken by this minister to his duties.

If you want to

talk about a vote of confidence or no-confidence in this minister, I

think what we end up concluding, if we're fair-minded, is a vote of

confidence in this minister. We have a Health minister who is keeping

our hospitals open with no threat of strikes to shut them down. He's

keeping our doctors in the medicare program, not opting out. He's

protecting our citizens from premium billing or balanced billing. He's

seeing to it that the problems we have that need resolution in the

health-care field are not being resolved in the courts but discussed

and resolved between his staff and the appropriate hospital boards. We

take for granted the ample power we have with which to run our

hospitals, and as our envious friends in Toronto read in the Toronto Globe and Mail ,

we have one of the finest health-care systems in North America. All of

that, Mr. Chairman, is, I think, a vote of confidence in this minister.

we found that health was ranking third, fourth or fifth in the

priorities of spending of this government, it might be different. If we

found our hospitals were being shut down by strikes all over the

province, it might be different. If we found our citizens were being

subjected to extra or premium billings, like most citizens in other

parts of Canada, it might be different. If we found our doctors were

opting out of our medicare system, it might be different. But unique in

Canada, none of that is happening. I think, Mr. Chairman, it's time to

pause and take stock of some of the things that we enjoy. On that basis

this minister deserves a large vote of confidence.

MS. BROWN:

Mr. Chairman I'm very sorry that the last speaker compared us to what

he refers to as "oil-rich Alberta." "Oil-rich Alberta" has the worst

record in the delivery of human services of any province in Canada.

It's worst in the delivery of health, education or human resources. It

is a disgrace to Canada — oil-rich Alberta. The thing that terrifies

me, and the reason why I am supporting this vote of non-confidence in

this minister, is that I fear that we are going to degenerate into the

abysmal condition that oil-rich Alberta is in its delivery of health

services to its people. Heaven forbid that we should ever reach the

state of oil-rich Alberta — that disgraceful province. It reminds me of

when the ex-Minister of Human Resources used to compare us to Texas;

it's an insult to British Columbia. We're bad, the Minister of Health

is bad, but we're not as bad as oil-rich Alberta. I certainly hope we

never become as bad. If that member was hoping to become Minister of

Health he just blew it with that speech.

The Minister of

Health, at 8:30 this evening, stood on the floor of this House and said

there have been no cutbacks. If there are any cutbacks we should tell

him about them. On May 28 he received a telegram from Jack Gerow,

Secretary of the Hospital Employees Union, and again I'm going to read

it, because he's complimented me on my reading. Here we go:

RE BURNABY GENERAL HOSPITAL. THE HOSPITAL EMPLOYEES UNION NOTED

RECENTLY YOUR PUBLIC STATEMENT TO THE EFFECT THAT NO EMPLOYEES WOULD BE LAID

OFF AT THE BURNABY GENERAL HOSPITAL ARISING FROM THE HOSPITAL'S BUDGET APPROVED

BY YOUR MINISTRY. THE HOSPITAL EMPLOYEES' UNION REQUESTS THAT YOU MEET WITH

A COMMITTEE TO DISCUSS LAYOFFS AT THE HOSPITAL THAT ARE CONTRARY TO YOUR PUBLIC

STATEMENTS....

The

fact of the matter is that those people at the Burnaby General Hospital

were receiving layoff notices from the hospital. The difference between

a layoff notice and a layoff is not clear to me. If you get a notice

that you are laid off, does that mean you are laid off or does it mean

you're laid off? What does it mean? The Minister of Health, Mr.

Chairman, doesn't seem to know the difference between a notice telling

you that you are laid off and a cutback in the delivery of the hospital

services. The telegram goes on to say:

A NUMBER OF HOSPITAL EMPLOYEES ARE BEING LAID OFF INCLUDING EIGHT

FROM NURSING ALONE, SEVEN HEAD NURSES....

Eight

from the nursing area alone. Seven head nurses at the Burnaby General

Hospital lost their jobs. They were told they could become general-duty

nurses if that was what they

[ Page 831 ]

wanted.

Failing that, they were laid off. That was a cutback. The administrator

at the Burnaby General Hospital told us that the head nurses were going

from being responsible for 20-bed pods to being responsible for 40-bed

pods. That is a cutback. That is a layoff, and those who wanted to go

to general duty did so, and others left.

The local unit

representatives met with the hospital on May 24, 1979, and it was

indicated that the deletion of nursing orderlies, nursing service

aides, et cetera, was due solely to budgetary problems. Those are

cutbacks. Every single member of the opposition who stood on the floor

of this House has itemized cutbacks for that minister, and he insists

on standing on the floor of this House and saying there are not

cutbacks. As a result of your financial and budgetary stinginess there

have been cutbacks in Burnaby General Hospital, as there have been in

every other hospital in this province.

AN HON. MEMBER: Not every hospital — you're wrong.

MS. BROWN: Wrong about what? Well, I am speaking for Burnaby General Hospital, and this....

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The member for Burnaby-Edmonds has the floor.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, the minister received that telegram and he responded to it. He said:

"This

will acknowledge with thanks your Telex of today regarding Burnaby

General Hospital. Your concerns are appreciated, but they must be

advanced to the management of the hospital rather than with my

ministry. I would suggest that your request for a meeting be relayed to

the administrator of the hospital for appropriate action. "

The

minister cannot say that he did not know, because he acknowledged the

receipt of that Telex. The Telex stated very clearly that there were

cutbacks in that hospital. As a result of the budgetary restraints of

this government that happened on June 15, the hospital union, Local 180

of the Burnaby General Hospital, has gone before the Labour Relations

Board about the fact that people are being laid off and are not

protected according to the contract which was negotiated with that

hospital. Now in the beginning of his speech the minister stated that

earlier in the evening, at 5 o'clock or thereabouts, when I read into

the record letters from doctors on the attending staff at Burnaby

General about the EEG service being cut off.... He said they were old

letters, that the EEG had been reinstated in March, I think.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: No, I said it had been approved.

MS. BROWN: Did you say it had been reinstated in March?

MR. COCKE: Not even now!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The member for Burnaby-Edmonds has the floor.

MS. BROWN:

Well, if it had been reinstated in March, Mr. Chairman, I wish he would

start out by first of all notifying the administrator of the Burnaby

General that it has been reinstated. Because this letter to Mr.

Glenwright was sent on April 10, so if it was reinstated on March 28,

or whatever the date is that the minister claims it was reinstated....

Incidentally, that's a date he didn't know at 5 o'clock this afternoon

when I raised the issue on the floor. He wasn't able to respond to it

until he came back at 8:30, and when he came, he came with incorrect

information. That's the reason why there are problems in health care in

this province, because the minister cannot even get information

correctly. The administrator of that hospital wrote on April 10 asking

that that's service be allowed to go through.

The

neurologist, who has a full-time affiliation with the Burnaby General

Hospital, on May 28.... The doctor who is supposed to use that EEG

machine is writing to the chairman of the board of governors of Burnaby

General saying that the EEG is not there. Now I would not dare to stand

on the floor of the House and say those kinds of things about Burnaby

General Hospital without having met with those people, Mr. Chairman. I

am reading from letters which are public documents. This is not a

secret; this is not a letter addressed to me. It's a carbon copy of a

letter dated May 28 to the chairman of the board, Mr. Acheson. You

contact Mr. Acheson and he'll pass on this document to you. If the EEG

is operating at Burnaby General tell Mr. Acheson about it — he's the

chairman of the board — so that he can tell this neurologist who is a

full-time affiliate of that hospital and doesn't know that the machine

is there. He knows the machine is there but he didn't know that the

part-time technician to operate it was there.

The

administrator didn't know on April 10. Yet you stand on the floor of

this House and tell us that I sat in my office and brought out some old

letters because that EEG had been reinstituted in March of that year.

May

1979 — Dr. Pacey doesn't know. You didn't know either at 5 o'clock this

afternoon. On July 15 there was another letter from another resident

staff member of the Burnaby General Hospital.

Who knows that

the EEG has been reinstated? I am the happiest person in the world to

know that people in the Burnaby community who need to have

electroencephalography done are now able to have it done. Don't keep it

a secret. If it was possible for you to have that done since March, the

administrator should have been told. The neurologist should have been

told. The administrator and the chairman of the board should have been

told. They weren't told, because the machine has not been in operation

since March. Now you get your dates straight, Mr. Minister.

You

ask for further evidence about cutbacks. You brag about your long-term

care. Do you know the first thing that happened to Shaughnessy General

Hospital when it came under long-term care? That is public knowledge.

They made a TV program about it. The disabled veterans who used to run

the elevator, some of them for 17 years, were the first people to be

notified that they were being laid off at that hospital as a result of

your policies.

Interjection.

[ Page 832 ]

MS. BROWN:

You don't consider that a cutback? What is a cutback to you? You are

the worst Minister of Health this province has had for a long time,

simply because you will not even admit, Mr. Minister, that your

policies are jeopardizing the delivery of health care in this province

and because you will not put up half the fight for people that the

Minister of Transportation, Communications and Highways (Hon. Mr.

Fraser) put up for blacktop in this province. It's very simple why the

minister is being faced with this vote of non-confidence, something

that no other minister of that government has had to face, as inept and

incompetent as they all are. He's not even as good as the other

incompetent ministers over there. If that Minister of Transportation,

Communications and Highways had been the Minister of Health, the

hospitals budget would have been up by over 60 percent, because he

would have fought for the people of this province in the same way that

he's fighting for the highways. That is one of the problems that we

face in this province — not only an uncaring government, but an

incompetent minister.

MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Chairman, my

constituency has had some health-care problems in the past; but those

problems were solved when in 1975 we kicked the NDP out of office. The

member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) suggested that the back bench

here make a few comments about our constituencies, and I'm very happy

to do that. I would like to tell you, hon. member, that in my

constituency we have a $7 million hospital expansion program

authorized. Plans are now complete and, hopefully, the construction

will start sometime in September.

Also, Mr. Chairman, I'd

like to tell that hon. member and the previous speaker that we have not

had any staff cutbacks at our hospital. In fact, we have had an

increase in staff because of increased patient-days at the hospital.

Mr.

Chairman, I'm going to be very brief. But I would like to say that,

contrary to what some commercials would have us believe, things did not

go better with Cocke.

Mr. Chairman, I am proud of the excellent performance of our Minister of Health

and therefore will vote against this silly motion of non-confidence. I would

also like to tell you that during the campaign I had the opportunity of talking

to some of my constituents at meetings, as they would stand up with tears in

their eyes too and say: "Do your best to keep that socialist government

out of power. We can't stand their squandering, because we know what will

happen to our health services. "

would also like to tell you, hon. member, that I have come from a

country where we had your type of socialism and your socialistic

services. I left because of them. And, again, I'm very proud to stand

up and support our Minister of Health and vote against this motion of

non-confidence.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Chairman, the

motion that we have before us is simply a reaffirmation of a decision

that has already been taken in cabinet. When one looks at what this

minister has been forced to do, and how dutifully he has carried it out

without fighting, without any outcry, and obviously without offering

his resignation, it shows that the decision of non-confidence in this

minister has already been taken in cabinet. So what we're doing with

this motion is reaffirming that action.

Early on in this

session the minister got up, I believe, after the member for New

Westminster (Mr. Cocke) first brought up the business of the 5 percent

budgetary limitation, and he said: "There is no 5 percent limitation;

there was no 5 percent limitation; it never existed." For a while it

didn't exist, until the member for New Westminster brought to his

attention the memorandum that he had sent out, and his own words were

sprung back on him.

It's rather interesting that some

members would get up and say that there are no problems in their area.

I know that there certainly are with some of the hospitals in the

Nelson-Creston riding; we've seen evidence that there is in the Prince

George riding. One in particular, the Arrow Lakes Hospital in Nakusp,

is staffed at a cut-back and reduced level.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 11 p.m.

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