1981 Legislative Session: 3rd 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)

FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 1981

Morning Sitting

[ Page

6155 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Health estimates. (Hon. Mr. Nielsen)

On vote 106: minister's office –– 6155

Mr. Cocke, Mr. Gabelmann, Mr. Barber, Hon. Mr. Hewitt, Ms. Brown, Mr. King

Tabling Documents

Memorandum regarding Garibaldi.

Hon. Mr. Rogers –– 6172

Appendix –– 6172

The House met at 10 a.m.

Prayers.

MR. RITCHIE:

Mr. Speaker, we have in the gallery today a young man who has spent the

past week in the Social Credit caucus getting some political

experience. We're very pleased to see him here, and it gives me an

opportunity to introduce him to the House. He is Murray Jack, who is

winding up his week's experience today. Would the House please welcome

Murray.

MR. PASSARELL: Today I have the honour to

have my mother sitting behind us. She has come to visit us from

Detroit. It is also her birthday today, as well as the second

anniversary of the day I was finally brought into this House. She comes

to see the happiness the House offers me today.

MS. BROWN:

Later in the day a group of students from McPherson Park Junior

Secondary School in Burnaby-Edmonds will be visiting the Legislature,

accompanied by their teacher Mrs. McIntyre. I wonder if the House would

greet them in absentia.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF HEALTH

(continued)

On vote 106: minister's office, $205,728.

MR. COCKE:

We have been talking about what's wrong with the health-care system.

Generally speaking, parts of the health-care system are well thought

out. The biggest problems that we have in our whole health-care system

are integration and coordination. When you have that kind of situation,

then all parts of the system break down. It goes without saying that

there has been a total lack of priority in the delivery of health care.

Yesterday

the minister stood up in the House and read us headline after headline

indicating that there's a lack of beds, and he mentioned other chronic

problems. Then he went on to say that they've always been with us. I'd

like to go through a few of the reasons for these headlines. The first

thing I'd like to say is that we have a very important area here, an

area that we on this side of the House consider not to be a privilege.

The delivery of health care to each and every person in this province

is not a privilege; it's a right. It's as much a right as education or

any other responsibility government takes on. Human rights are actually

being denied here.

There are those who cry or bleat that the cut in home-care services is purely

a matter of streamlining, making sure that you're cutting out the fat, etc.

That is not, however, the way it's occurring. We have seen directives that

say there must be an average cut of 15 percent as of last January 1981. In other

words, you multiply the service provided in January by 12 and you subtract 15

percent of that. When is a cut not a cut? I suggest very clearly that that is

a cut. It's a monstrous cut in a growing service. Why then is there a charge that

there is some kind of irresponsible act and people are being scared? Mr. Chairman,

if it were you or I who, by virtue of the fact that home care is not available,

was faced with the inevitability of having, to 2o to an acute-care hospital,

which really will only act as a holding place until such time as another facility

is found — and those facilities and those beds are scarce now it would just

be a situation that we found unacceptable.

I'm

going to go through some of the statistics that we've been able to

glean. St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver has 535 acute beds, 75 to 100

of which are occupied by long-term care patients. What are they doing

in there? They are in there because there is no other facility

available for them. Where should they be? They should be cared for in

either a homecare setting or a long-term care situation. I contend that

a long-term care patient in an acute-care facility is in solitary

confinement. It is not the proper facility for a long-term care patient

— not by any stretch of the imagination. A long-term care facility

provides for activity, rehabilitation and socialization. There are 75

to 100 people in that facility alone. That's why the opposition is

talking of working at the most economic level, as well as the level

which best fits the needs of the patients.

Let's look at

those levels. Home care is the least alienating, of all levels. People

are happiest in their homes if in fact the can be kept there. So that's

a level that should be reinforced. Yet where was the first attack? The

first attack was at that level. It wasn’t an attack that was well

thought out. You see, it was an attack on the across-the-board system.

Instead of your saying, "Look, maybe our assessments are incorrect or

maybe there should be a change in the assessment of patients, " it

wasn't done that way; there was an across-the-board directive. As a

result of that, last March we found 75 to 100 long-term care patients

in St. Paul's, which is a 535-bed hospital, and that will get worse;

it's bound to. I see situations where that occurs constantly — hospital

after hospital. Kelowna General is very close to the Premier's heart,

I'm sure.

AN HON. MEMBER: Heart?

MR. COCKE: Heart. Oh, there's some argument.

any event, there are 286 beds in that hospital; there are 25 long,

2-term care patients in acute-care beds, and 985 people waiting for

elective surgery for three months and longer. They also have — or had

at that time — a deficit of something in the order of $800,000.

I say too that you find it in the smaller hospitals. Fort St. John has 85

beds and three people waiting for long-term care beds but occupying acute-care

beds; Nanaimo Regional has 274 beds and 36 to 40 people waiting. That's

what we're talking about. We're saying that we have this problem across

the board. That problem further amplifies the situation of long waiting-lists

for surgery. At Nanaimo General we have 1,130 people on a waiting-list

— as long as 18 months for non-emergency. At that time it was a two- to three-month

wait for emergency surgery in Nanaimo General. These are not figures that we

dreamed up we got them directly from the facility. We got them right down the

line.

Trail it's the same thing: 175 beds, a minimum of five long-term care

patients: Cranbrook, 80 beds, 10 percent — eight of those occupied by

long-term care people; Kimberley, 50 beds — two to three; Prince

Rupert, a waiting list; Surrey Memorial — we talked about that

yesterday –– 40 long-term care patients out of 297 beds; Burnaby

General, 350 beds,

[ Page 6156 ]

with

80 of those occupied by long-term care patients, and beyond that they

even have their own extended-care facility there. What a percentage!

Mr. Chairman, everybody knows about the Victoria General, with 70 of

429 beds occupied by people awaiting long-term care; that is, people

who are designated for long-term care. Maple Ridge, 106 beds, 19

long-term care patients, and there are 48 people on the waiting-list

for extended care. Fernie, 64 beds, six long-term care patients waiting

in those acute-care beds; Mission Memorial, 84 beds and 19 of them are

occupied by long-term care patients; Langley Memorial, 162 beds –– 39

there. What a misuse of beds! Mr. Chairman, I can go on and on. Vernon

Jubilee, 155 beds –– 18 of them occupied by long-term care patients;

Peace Arch, 108 beds –– 20 of them; Powell River, 86 beds –– 12 people

waiting for long-term care; Royal Columbian — my darling New

Westminster hospital –– 463 beds, 40 of those beds misused.

You

see, it's not as if we're doing the long-term care patients a favour;

we are not doing them a favour at all, because this is not a facility

that lends itself to their need. Their need, by virtue of the fact that

they're going to be there for a long time, is for an opportunity to

have a lifestyle that's acceptable. It's no lifestyle for a person

locked up in a small room in an acute-care facility if they're going to

be there for a great length of time. The average length of stay in an

acutecare facility runs something like eight to ten days; it's often

much shorter, because the averages don't necessarily indicate how long

the individual is going to be in. That's quite acceptable. They need a

rest. It's an acute illness. They don't need a lot of company or

socialization. They don't have to watch television or play bingo or

whatever devices are used to help people in long-term care facilities.

When you put a person in that kind of setting for month after month,

then it becomes intolerable.

What do we want to do? We want

to start looking at the most economical end of the system and reinforce

it carefully and thoughtfully. But do it. Then we will find that we

alleviate the problems at the other end of the system — the most

expensive end of the system. I think that's very clear.

There

are two or three other things that I'd like to put into this whole

context. We are continually hearing — and the minister read the

headlines yesterday — that the reason the hospitals close beds in the

summertime is a lack of nurses. Right? Nurses go on holidays, and

doctors don't accept patients, etc. Let's see what we're doing about

that in this province at the present time. Here's a press release

emanating from....

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: The member for Central Fraser Valley (Mr. Ritchie) obviously isn't interested in the nursing situation in our province.

This press release came out on June 2. It's talking about a nursing education

crisis in British Columbia. This emanate from BCIT, where every year they

have been admitting 68 new nurses to their nursing classes. Because of stringent

controls, this year they're going to have to cut out their 68 nurses. Out

of a total of 2,268 new B.C. registrants in the year 1980, 511 were educated

in B.C. nursing programs, BCIT presently trains 20 percent of those. This one

cut will cut that down to 10 percent. I'm not sure that they don't plan

to continue to cut. Again, this is part of the whole problem we have. We find

a lack of people working at the levels that are absolutely necessary. I believe

this is just as significant in terms of lack of thought as the cuts in home

care.

I'd just like to go back to those cuts in home care for a

second. The directives we have seen are directives of actual cuts of 15

percent of last January's hours. In other words, in January they

multiplied the number of hours you were doing by 12 — let's say you

were doing 1,000 hours in January; that's 12,000 — then they take away

15 percent of that, and that's all you're allowed month by month for

the coming year. That's a thoughtless cut. That's the kind of cut that

can do nothing more than create chaos. Yesterday I read example after

example of people who will be faced with having to go to some kind of

facility. What facility will they be faced with? An acute-care

facility, because there's no room for them in long-term care. What will

we be further faced with? We'll be faced with acute-care facilities

packing it up this summer because we've got a shortage of nurses and

our hospital beds will be full of long-term care patients. Our

acute-care situa tion in this province will become most acute.

I believe that what they're talking about at BCIT and we've been

getting report after report about is where we should be setting our

priorities, and we're really not doing a job of it at all. Here is a

report from the B.C. Health Association. Contrast it to a little

brochure that came out from the Ministry of Health some time ago. This

is a residential-care brochure. It says:

"People like to be able to look after themselves without

being totally dependent on others, but some times health problems can make it

difficult for a person to do this without some help. Often in the past this

meant leaving home to go where special-care services were available. Suitable

facilities were scattered and expensive, and it could be a wrenching experience.

Now there's a long-term care" — hallelujah! — "program designed

to help people with health-related problems by bringing the necessary support

right into their homes or providing care in a residential facility as close

to their homes as possible at a cost that everyone can afford."

That's

what it says, but what are we finding? We're finding that the

allocations of resources to the home support services, such as

home-care, homemaker, respite and adult care programs, are not

sufficient to meet the identified needs. We are finding that the whole

question of health care is being looked upon by all the people directly

involved and many of those peripherally involved.

The second recommendation from the task force of the B.C. Health Association

is that the government be asked to allocate, as a matter of urgency, sufficient

resources to all aspects of the long-term care program so that its objectives

can be achieved without continuing detriment to the acute care hospital services

available to the people of B.C.

Their

third recommendation is that the allocation of re sources to the home

support services, such as home-care, homemaker, respite and adult-care

programs, be sufficient to meet the identified care needs.

are identifying the needs. We have assessment people out there —

overworked, there's no question. Sometimes they are three, four and

five weeks late in assessing when they're called upon to make an

assessment of a person. They are late getting there, by virtue of their

load. But once there they do have the guidelines. They know whether a

person qualifies. What we're seeing in the report from the B.C.

Health Association is the fact that they are criticizing.

[ Page 6157 ]

They're

criticizing the priority, because they're saying that the government

should be asked to allocate sufficient resources, as a matter of

urgency, to all aspects of long-term care. Then they go on to reinforce

the need, not for any other reason than that it's humane — except that

they are worrying about what's happening to our acute-care hospitals,

and I've gone all through that in the last few minutes. They are saying

that this must be done in order that the programs will protect the

acute-care hospitals. If we don't do that, we're just not doing

anything properly.

There is a fourth recommendation, and I

agree with this: that increased encouragement and support be given to

voluntary agencies to initiate and expand community support programs

aimed at maintaining chronically disabled people in their homes, Mr.

Chairman, you and I know what keeps agencies together — volunteers and

some of kind of catalyst. You have to have somebody there doing the

ongoing work in order to keep it all together. They are not getting the

support. So we back right up through the system. We go from homemakers,

home care, long-term care at the different levels, and back that right

up into the acute-care hospitals. It's as plain as day following night

or night following day. That's our problem and will continue to be our

problem until such time as we do a good job of getting in there and

sorting it all out. The expectations are there and must be met.

Over

the next few years we do have a bit of respite. The number of people

attaining age 65, 70, 75, 80, etc. has been quite easy to forecast to

date. We do know this: starting a decade from now, there will be a bit

of respite. Because there were fewer people born during the Depression

period, there will be a levelling off. But then after that, at the turn

of the century and just beyond, up to a crescendo around 2031, there's

going to be another big jump in the graph. We should be preparing for

this situation.

We are visited with the problem that the

nuclear family is obviously here to stay for some time. It's all very

well and good for the minister to say that families should look after

their own, or help. Families can help and do help. As a matter of fact,

families are often helping at times to the extent that others in the

family are becoming ill by virtue of the fact that they just can't help

that much anymore. What I've mainly seen has been a spouse, one or the

other, taking care of the other at the expense of their own health.

That's one of the reasons home care came in in the first place — to

protect those people, to keep them out of the mainstream of our health

system and to keep them in the most adequate and least alien

circumstance possible.

I must say again that the one thing

we're very concerned about here is the whole question of home care. I

would very much like to see the minister take a far more responsible

look at this whole question of home care than has been my experience

heretofore.

MR. GABELMANN: This morning I want to

make a few brief comments about acute-care services in this province,

particularly about the delivery of health care through the hospital

system and the long-term care and extended-care programs that exist in

my own constituency. Perhaps later in the debate, early next week, I'll

canvass some other issues that need to be canvassed.

I've

made some of these comments in previous debates on other ministries in

this Legislature. I want to start my comments this morning by talking

about what I perceive to be a major problem in our society, in terms of

its changing nature, one that requires more attention by government

than governments in general — I might say, politicians in general

appear ready to devote to it.

For countless generations much

of one's health and lack of dis-ease — if I may put the word "disease"

in its old and more proper context — was dealt with by two aspects of

society which really no longer exist. One was the extended family — the

knowledge gained by older members of a family, grandparents, who were

able in many instances to deal with children with their experience of

many years. They were able to provide remedies, approaches to

lifestyles, and wisdom relating to stress, and were in fact in many

instances able to do a great deal of preventive medicine simply because

they had lived through those years and understood what life's stresses

and tribulations could do. They understood some of the solutions to

those problems.

The second aspect of society which for all

intents and purposes no longer exists is the relationship between

people and their church, minister or priest, which is now much absent

in this society. Much of disease is clearly stress initiated. I'm

convinced that at least half, and more likely two-thirds or

three-quarters, of our physical ailments are related to emotional

stress. It used to be that you could deal with a lot of your stress and

emotional upsets by talking to someone. That someone was often the

priest or minister in the community, or, as I said earlier, the

grandparents. By and large, those situations don't exist anymore. Where

they do, they don't exist in the same way as they once did. We

therefore have to attempt to find alternative solutions.

seems to me that health care should be a subject that deals with health

care, not illness care. You have to deal with illness, of course, but

we would have so much less to do if we dealt with health care rather

than with illness. If we could replace in our society some of the

wisdom that was available to earlier generations, we could go a long

way to preventing a lot of illness and extra cost that I think is

essentially stress caused. We don't have programs in our school system

that relate to health care or disease-related issues. We don't teach

kids about nutrition. We don't talk to them about stress management. We

don't do all of those things that in my estimation could save many

millions of dollars in future years.

As part of that whole

approach to dealing with illness and health, it seems to me that a

fundamental commitment must be made by government, by politicians and

specifically by the Ministry of Health to having as its first priority

in its public campaign and public posturing the prevention of disease.

That doesn't appear now to be the case. There aren't very many programs

for children, young mothers and newly married couples. There aren't

very many community-based programs that deal with health care. I think

that should be a major focus of the ministry.

The other day

in question period I attempted to ask a question of the minister about

the impact of last year's hiring freeze on health-care staff and of

this year's cutbacks in home-care service in the Campbell River area.

The minister said that my question was convoluted, and he didn't

understand it particularly well. After reading the Blues, I must say

that he was right. The question was quite convoluted and I don't blame

him for not understanding it. My problem in that question, of course,

was in trying to relate the various cuts and cutbacks that have been

going on — I referred to them without defining each of the separate

cutbacks, one of which impacts upon the next. Because there have been

so many of

[ Page 6158 ]

them recently, and because of the constraints of question period, the question became quite convoluted.

would like to take a couple of minutes in this more informal committee

procedure to try to outline to the minister what the problem has been.

As a result of last year's hiring freeze, we in the Campbell River area

have not had a longterm care assessor between September 1980 and

February 1981. That's not just assessment for home care; that's

assessment for long-term care programs of all kinds. There was no

assessor in that area for about six months as a result of the hiring

freeze. That meant that only urgent cases were dealt with, and they

were dealt with by a social worker, not a longterm care assessor. As a

result of that backup, many people have not had an assessment for some

time now.

The assessor, who has been hired effective

February of this year, is attempting to catch up with the backlog of

assessments relating to institutionalized assessment. They are now

faced with having to do, in effect, a reassessment of all those people

who are in the home-care program, as well as trying to catch up with

the backlog. That's virtually an impossible situation. Yet the ministry

has demanded that the Campbell River home-care program, which

incidentally serves not just Campbell River but also Cortes and Quadra

islands, reduce from 2,284 hours to 1,650 hours per month. My point the

other day in question period, which I admit was made very badly, was

that it is next to impossible for the people to catch up with all the

undone assessments, much less do all of the assessments required now

for the home-care program.

It seems to me that if the

minister's desire was to establish that there's no fat in the home-care

delivery program and that assessments are done properly, one wouldn't

order an absolute cutback in hours but would rather say to one's staff:

"Have you got enough staff to do the job properly? Would you do the job

properly within the following guidelines and see what you come up with

and what the requirements are?" Let's know what services are required

from those people, and let's see how much money that costs. To say that

you're going to cut back those dollars — even though the number of

dollars meets the extra inflationary cost this year — to those people

who are now being served means you are going to be spending ten times

as many dollars.

I don't understand why you do that. I don't

understand why you are saying to people: "We don't want you to stay in

your home." Incidentally, this was a unanimous recommendation of the

legislative committee chaired by the now member for Burnaby-Edmonds

(Ms. Brown) that I sat on in about 1974. It travelled around this

province, and everywhere we went people — professionals, people in the

medical services field, ordinary citizens and every single person we

went to — said: "Not only, would home care be a better way of

delivering some kind of health care to people, but it would be

cheaper." Why cut back in the cheapest, most effective part of the

health-care delivery system? It then reverberates throughout the

system. What we now have in my particular constituency are people who

are in long-term facilities who might well be at home if they had the

capacity to have the kind of in-home service that they should have.

That would be a significant reduction in dollars.

In the hospitals in Campbell River we have people who could be in the extended-care

unit or in long-term care programs. The ministry isn't prepared to spend

the fewer dollars, but they are prepared to spend the greater dollars. To me

that seems absolutely absurd. Everybody in this Legislature and everybody in

this province and country who's thought about the issue knows we're

spending too much money on health care. We're spending a fortune on health

care — a third of the budget. In rough terms it's $2 billion in B.C. That's

an immense amount of money. Why don't we look at why it's costing us

so much money? It's costing us so much money because we rely almost exclusively

on the doctor's office and the acute-care hospital model. We don't try

to provide the kind of cheaper services, or do much on prevention — dealing

with health rather than with illness, as the Chinese would do.

answer to the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) yesterday, the

minister said: "I agree. You're right." Every action of the ministry in

terms of the dollars it spends and the programs it supports belies the

comments of the minister yesterday and belies what I believe to be the

general consensus of this Legislature. The programs don't follow the

apparent philosophy of the minister.

I'll leave that part of

it for now. I want to read parts of two letters into the record. One is

from a woman in Woss and one is from a man in Port Alice. These are

samples, and I know other members in the Legislature have a lot of

letters similar to this. Before I do, let me just say that I want to

read a quote from the Upper Island Union Board of Health. I'll talk

more about that when we talk about public health, perhaps on Monday or

Tuesday. They're still waiting for an answer to their request to have a

meeting with the minister. Dealing with acute-care hospitals in

Campbell River specifically, the Upper Island Union Board of Health is

"... bewildered and exasperated with the latest delay in the

implementation of a long-promised hospital bed replacement program in

Campbell River." It goes on: "Due to a lack of funds, the program is

postponed."

What effect does that shortage of beds that we

have in that area of Campbell River, which is a major referral hospital

along with St. Joseph's in Comox, have for the whole of northern

Vancouver Island?

I have a letter to from a woman in Woss, whose name I'll make available

to the minister privately if he wishes. The woman wrote:

"Dear Sir:

"I would like to

bring to your attention the lack of health service I have received. On

Friday, March 20, I was admitted to the Port McNeill hospital after an

incomplete miscarriage. Subsequent observation confirmed that I

required further medical treatment in the form of a D&C operation

performed at the Campbell River hospital. It is now April 10" — three

weeks later — "and the hospital is not able to receive me. They do not

have enough beds to accommodate anything other than emergency patients.

As of this date I still have not received any service, and this is

affecting my emotional stability, not to mention my physical health.

feel this is an abhorrent situation. It is very inadequate that a

hospital can only accept emergency patients, and that day patients have

to wait weeks for medical care and attention. I feel this should be a

number one priority with you, as medical service should be available to

everyone."

It should be routine. She shouldn't have to wait three weeks for a D&C after a referral.

I have another letter, from Port Alice, dated June 4. It arrived in my office June 9. This is actually a letter to the

[ Page 6159 ]

minister,

and I assume the minister has seen it. I won't read the whole letter.

It's a three-page letter, and I don't think I should read it all, but

there are some paragraphs that require being put into the record:

"My

family and I enjoy excellent health, resulting in us having little

opportunity to view the health-care program at first hand. However, my

wife recently became afflicted with an enlarged thyroid requiring

surgical removal, and it was at this point in time that we became aware

of the sorry state of affairs in our hospitals. Because my wife's

surgery was not of an emergency nature, it was postponed no less than

three times for lack of beds at the Campbell River hospital.

"Three

times, when one says it quickly, doesn't have a great deal of impact,

but let us understand just exactly what is involved when the hospital

is not able to verify whether or not there is a bed as late as two

hours prior to the scheduled admitting time.

"It

seems, Mr. Minister, that I was forced to absent myself from my job on

speculation so that I might drive my wife to Campbell River due to the

lack of alternative transportation, only to have the surgery cancelled

by telephone as we were on the point of departure. It means that a

guardian scheduled for our infant son has to be cancelled, subject to

recall at some nebulous future date. These things and all they entail

may be shrugged off as mere inconveniences, which they are, but most

importantly we cannot overlook the physical discomfort my wife

experienced as her condition worsened due to its protracted nature,

compounded by the emotional stress that is placed on one facing major

surgery."

This letter also talks about the emotional stress.

He goes on, and I'll skip a bit. He then gives some examples and he

relates his awareness of other instances in the hospital system in this

province:

"My own sister, residing in the

lower Fraser Valley — Aldergrove — recently underwent major surgery for

the removal of varicose veins and was obliged to recuperate in the

Langley Memorial maternity ward for lack of more conventional bedding —

a situation that evoked much mirth from her sister patients in light of

her advanced years."

I'll read another example:

colleague at my place of work" — incidentally I know this gentleman

from the pulpmill in Port Alice — "was discharged prematurely from a

Victoria hospital because his bed was needed, and he was faced with a

choice of staying in Victoria at considerable expense or driving back

to Port Alice in considerable discomfort."

A third example reads:

"Another workmate has had scheduled surgery for the removal

of hemorrhoids repeatedly cancelled due to low priority, a situation that is

amusing to everyone except the patient.

"A neighbour informs me that her father, who is in advanced

years, is unable to be treated for a hernia before August next. Patients are

being crammed into any space available. For instance, at Campbell River on June

1, I saw patients in beds set up in the common TV room. A male patient was placed

in the women's ward.

"In

short, Mr. Minister, my brief exposure to a hospital, in addition to

subsequent discussions with other patients, has shown me that our

hospitals are understaffed and totally inadequate to meet the

requirements of the growing population of the North Island. It would

appear that this situation is in no way unique to this area.

"If course, you will point to the new 25-bed facility now

at Port Hardy in response, and certainly it is a positive step. However, you

must know that knowledgeable people on the regional hospital board are publicly

suggesting that it will already be inadequate by the time it is completed and

ready for service.

"In

view of the vast amounts of our money that the government apparently

has to toss around on things such as football stadiums and convention

centres, their sense of priority is very much called into question. It

is obvious that they be reminded, your office in particular, that every

government has a moral and financial obligation to the physical and

mental health of each and every one of its citizens. Slick, expensive

promotional gimmicks by Social Credit Party hacks will do nothing to

fulfill that obligation, " he concludes — and I concur.

conclude by repeating that I think the ministry has to set itself the

task of dealing with public health in a very different way. In my

judgment, first of all, it needs to go on a major campaign in this

province, spending some considerable amount of money, talking to

people, teaching people about prevention and nutrition and the things

they can do to prevent an increased stress level, which leads to a

variety of physical ailments which then often lead to acute-care

hospital beds. We need to cut down on the number of people in

acute-care hospital beds. We need to cut down on the number of people

institutionalized in one long-term care facility or another. We need to

find ways to allow people to stay at home to recuperate. Those are

major objectives which, in my judgment, the ministry has not yet seen

as its mandate — and I believe it should.

HON. MR. NIELSEN:

I found the statements made by member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann)

to be most interesting. As well, some of the philosophy which he

offered is quite interesting. If we had the capacity to fully

understand what brings about much of what he was discussing, I think

that we as a society would be making a great deal of progress. I agree

with the member's suggestion that a tremendous amount of the illness

which people in our province and in the country suffer is brought about

by stress. It's brought about by daily activities and relationships

which affect the individual in a very negative way and, eventually, are

identifiable as a major contributing factor to the lack of well-being

of that individual, whether it be in physical deterioration or perhaps

in some form of mental stress.

I don't believe that the

Ministry of Health on its own could resolve that situation. I believe

the — Ministry of Health must recognize that indeed these are

contributing factors. Unfortunately, in our society we have a

tremendous number of people who contribute to this problem in a very

deliberate way: they see everything from a negative point of view and

will do almost anything they can to aggravate another individual's

attitude towards life, whether it's to do with the economy, the family,

the environment, world strife, energy,

[ Page 6160 ]

religion,

education or any subject you may wish to choose; they are totally

negatively motivated. We see this repeated over and over. We see people

in a position where they can be easily upset when provided with

misinformation, provided with alarming information by way of the media.

Repeatedly we see stories reported on radio and television and in

newspapers and periodicals which perhaps later are retracted because

they were in error; yet during that period of time a tremendous amount

of strife occurred among individuals.

Certainly that is a

major concern. It is a major contributing factor to the overall

well-being of our society and to the overall well-being of individuals.

Stress is something that should not be considered lightly, as it

affects the overall health of an individual. It's a major contributing

factor. I agree as well that the make-up of our society today,

particularly at the family and community levels, is very much different

than it was even a generation ago. Things have changed tremendously.

The mobility of people, the capacity of people to relocate and to be

educated in an entirely different way from their traditional family

history, has brought about a change in society and a need for different

services to people than those which were traditionally handled by the

clergy, family or grandparents, as the member said. We do have a very

different situation.

I just wish to say again that I think a

major contributing factor to this well-being or lack of dis-ease, as

the member said, is the attitudes of so many negative people in our

society. These people feel either that they should be promoting

negativism or that they will not accept anything that may be positive.

That's a person's right, of course, and those people are all over our

society.

I respect the reports the member offered concerning

individual difficulties of people who require elective surgery and, in

some instances, what is referred to as urgent surgery. I appreciate the

problem of short notice and the lack of available beds. It's very

difficult for hospitals to determine precisely when a bed will be open.

The patients who are occupying those beds may suffer a relapse, and

their doctor may tell them to stay in the hospital. There are emergency

cases, of course, which have precedence over elective surgery. It's not

an exact art. It can be improved, but it's certainly not exact. It's

exasperating for an individual who has made complex arrangements to be

available at a certain time, in a certain location, for a certain

procedure, to then be advised: "Sorry, we'll have to take you some

other time." I suppose that's the constant challenge to the hospital

system: to try to organize it so that sort of occurrence is reduced to

the minimum. But I don't think it will ever work in a perfect way.

Certainly it's aggravating, and it does cause difficulties.

The

statements by the member for North Island are not completely

contradictory, but they do contain seeds of contradiction. I think that

is almost impossible to avoid when discussing health. The member asked

why we are spending so much money, and he mentioned approximately $2

billion, which is probably excessive of what could be needed. Yet to

remedy some of the identified problems would require the expenditure of

more money. We are constantly expanding our acute-care facilities, our

intermediate-care facilities and other facilities to respond directly

to the problems the member spoke of.

Mr. Chairman, when you

as an individual, or someone close to you, is not receiving the service

you feel should be available, it reaches crisis proportions. From a

statistical point of view the problem probably doesn't appear to be as

severe because it's more impersonal. The problem of elective surgery

and the long waiting-lists, which unfortunately have been a tradition

of our system for decades, may be relieved in some way by

reorganization on every level. I have been given information that in

British Columbia approximately 1,300 surgical procedures are performed

daily. Acute and rehabilitative operations total about 1,122, and

day-care surgery figures total 247. Those figures have been provided to

me. If they are accurate, and it's approximately 1,300-plus a day....

If we were to utilize our facilities most of the year — say, 300 days a

year including Saturdays in many instances, which apparently at one

time was very common and quite traditional — we could process in excess

of 400,000 surgical procedures a year.

We simply do not have

that level of efficiency, and I'm not suggesting we get onto a

production-line mentality. But there is no question that many of the

resources available are not as efficiently used as they could be. There

are so many people involved in the procedure. You must take into

consideration the desires of the patients themselves. You must consider

the availability of the supporting members of the family or

neighbourhood with respect to that patient's requirements, the

availability of the surgeon and hospital facilities and so on. It is

not an easy situation to simply feel that you have the capacity to

respond to the needs of that one individual, without taking into

consideration all the other individuals who are involved in the

procedure and their availability, and coordinating that timing.

I'm

advised that approximately 155,000 people in British Columbia come in

contact with health services each day. It's a very large number. It's a

number which tells us that in the vast majority of cases these services

are provided in an efficient and satisfactory way. Of course we receive

complaints from individuals. Of course we receive complaints and

requests from regional districts, hospital districts, hospitals

themselves, communities, professional organizations and the rest, that

more needs to be done. Because that's been occurring for a long time,

there are further developments taking place, more acute-care beds and

intermediate-care facilities coming on line, and other services being

introduced and expanded.

If we reach the point that we can

provide the service requested by a citizen on almost a moment's notice,

we would probably be guilty of over-servicing the health-care field. I

agree that there is a tremendous difference between that situation and

the situation where an individual is greatly inconvenienced not only

one time but several times. More coordination is required.

The

member for North Island felt what is available in the health-delivery

field in the province seems to be somewhat inconsistent with what I

spoke about yesterday, which he referred to as "the philosophy. " I

could respond by saying: yes, there may be some contradictions, in that

the delivery of health service, as I believe it should be, may indeed

be inconsistent with what is being provided today. We cannot and simply

do not have the capacity to change it immediately. We have to work

toward those changes, which we are doing. At one point when the member

was speaking I wrote down: "That's exactly what we are doing." Of

course, we're not going to catch up immediately. We're not going to

change traditional procedures overnight.

There are many

people involved from beginning to end in the delivery of health care.

The Ministry of Health does not have direct control over many of these.

The Ministry of Health has a responsibility which includes the funding

[ Page 6161 ]

many

of these services. The member mentioned that a patient was discharged

from a bed in Victoria. The reason the patient provided in his letter

was that they needed the bed for someone else. That's regrettable, if

the person was caused to suffer inconvenience or pain because of that.

This is not an excuse, Mr. Member, but that doctor also has a

responsibility with respect to when the patient is discharged. We do

not, of course, say that the patient must go. There may be other

pressures, but the doctor must still make the decision.

think it would be of some value if we were to look at our budget which

was presented to the House this year, and perhaps break it down into

what moneys, percentages of budget and so on are being applied to the

various levels of care, compared to the traditional distribution of

such funds. I would think, Mr. Member, you would see that the trend is

indeed toward these — I hate using the term — lower-level services, a

less intensive level of services. Very clearly that is the trend.

The

member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) mentioned a series of hospitals

where patients who had been identified as requiring long-term care were

occupying acutecare beds. Throughout the province there are

approximately 1,150 such situations, with patients in acute-care

settings who have been identified as needing long-term care, The

Ministry of Health has projected a total of 1,403 intermediate-care bed

openings in this fiscal year. Those 1,403 beds may offer a reasonable

amount of relief in some of these situations, but I can guarantee you

that even when those 1,403 beds are filled there will still be patients

in acute-care facilities who require long-term care.

The

numbers provided by the member for New Westminster as of January 1 - I

think that was the date he gave — have been improved somewhat. In most

instances there have been improvements. You mentioned 39 at Langley; my

latest information is that that is down to 27, which is an improvement.

The member said Peace Arch was at 20; it's down to eight. The member

said 70 at Victoria General; unfortunately that's up to 82. So it's

going up and down in certain areas. Generally it has been declining,

and with the 1,400 beds coming on stream this fiscal year we hope there

will a further reduction in those demands. I certainly recognize there

will still be people in acute-care beds who should be treated in

long-term care facilities. We are working toward that end, but we don't

expect to achieve complete results for some time.

The

preventive methods mentioned by the member for North Island have been

referred to by other members during this debate, I concur that

preventive medicine — whether it be the styles recently developed or

those styles which were part of society for so long — should not be

forgotten and should be stressed. We do require additional people in

the field for counselling, nutritional guidance and other avenues of

health which would assist in preventing illness or disease. I agree

with that. That is part of the emphasis we are attempting to develop.

The

homemaker service has been the subject of a great deal of attention in

the last week or so. Because of the attention and the large number of

people involved in it, to make sure there is minimum confusion — if

confusion does exist, and I believe there is some confusion — all

long-term care administrators in the province have been offered, a very

clear directive to ensure that they know what the policy of the moment

is, in case there has been any misinterpretation or modification of the

policy which may have come from senior staff to the long-term care

administrators. The director of home-care and long-term care has

instructions from me and from the deputy minister's level, directed to

all long-term care administrators, advising them of the concern that a

blanket approach has been taken in an effort to contain expenditures in

this particular program. They have asked each of the long-term care

administrators who have the responsibility within their area to ensure

that each case is reviewed individually, as I mentioned the other day,

with a view to providing the minimum level of services required to meet

that individual's needs, bearing in mind the responsibility of family,

friends or other community resources which could help support the

individual. Mr. Philip Scott, who is director of the program, has

advised all the long-term care administrators that no arbitrary cuts in

service should be implemented without prior consultation with his

office.

There is a factor involved in this particular debate

that I am most distressed about. I have not had the opportunity of

researching it fully, but I intend to. I intend to find out why certain

information has been provided directly to patients which has resulted

in many of them being absolutely terrified. I feel that in many

instances it is not justified. I don't wish to be misinterpreted; I'm

not speaking of members of this assembly. But I think there has been an

unnecessary concern offered to some individuals, and I intend to find

out why. I have my suspicions, but I'm not going to offer suspicions; I

want confirmation. We intend to respond to that as quickly as possible.

think I've covered the points mentioned by the member for North Island.

I believe I've covered the other points mentioned by the members who

have had the opportunity of speaking today.

MR. BARBER:

Mr. Chairman, in the newspeak of Social Credit some words have come to

mean their opposite, depending on who speaks them. In the newspeak of

Social Credit an attitude which is authentically negative is posed and

postured as positive. In the newspeak of Social Credit a cutback

somehow comes to be designated an improvement. In the newspeak of

Social Credit, as we've heard this morning from the minister in a pious

and unbelievable little speech, a party which has fashioned itself as

the most negative and divisive force in the history of British Columbia

politics is now posing as a positive contributor to the life and people

of British Columbia.

Let me illustrate. This minister tells

us that there are some people in society who have negative attitudes

and who provoke them in others. What was the record of this minister

when he was the most notorious hotliner in British Columbia? It was

negative, negative, negative from beginning to end. The pious remarks

of this former hotliner, who was the most notoriously negative in that

whole business, are to say the least hardly credible this morning or at

any other time. In the newspeak of Social Credit....

MR. CHAIRMAN:

One moment, please. I will remind all members of the assembly, and

particularly the member who has just taken his place in the debate,

that Sir Erskine May reminds us of this: "Good temper and moderation

are the characteristics of parliamentary language. Parliamentary

language is never more desirable than when a member is canvassing the

opinions and conduct of his opponents in debate." I am sure all members

of the committee are aware of Sir Erskine's statement on parliamentary

language. With that said, I will ask the hon. first member for Victoria

not to allude

[ Page 6162 ]

the personality of another member in debate, and in fact to remain

relevant to the vote before us, vote 106, the minister's office.

MR. BARBER:

I thank you for your helpful advice, Mr. Chairman, and go on to observe

that in the newspeak of Social Credit things now have come to mean

their opposite. This minister, when a hotliner, was negative about the

agricultural land reserve. He was negative about the Royal Hudson ,

for heaven's sake — he even attacked that. I used to listen to his

ridiculous programs. It was fun. It was more entertaining than Eddie

Cantor or Al Jolson. In the newspeak of Social Credit, the latest

version of which we heard this morning, they now presume to advise

others not to be negative.

No party in the history of this

province has a sorrier record of negativism than does Social Credit.

They don't just manufacture stories about secret police. They don't

just invent welfare recipients living in the Empress Hotel, as the

previous Minister of Health did. They don't just cook up crackpot

schemes for compulsory heroin treatment — totally unconstitutional and

unworkable. They also make it their business to spread — in the most

negative, cynical and cruel manner possible — fear, suspicion and hate

among the people of British Columbia. That's what they did when in

opposition. That's what they're doing via the newspeak of Social Credit

today. The minister actually piously told us those negative persons are

all over our society. Well, he's right — by mistake. They're all in the

cabinet, and most of them are Socreds.

The minister also has

the nerve to tell us that it is the duty of his government to help the

long-term care program put its house in order. It's the duty of the

government to straighten out the alleged mistakes of the field offices

in the home-care organizations of the Ministry of Health, run directly

and indirectly by them. I want to read an interesting letter into the

record. It came out last year. It was published by the group billing

section of the Medical Services Plan. Let's find out, examining the

newspeak of Social Credit, what really goes on in their own house. I've

not previously released this letter. I was holding it for an opportune

moment. This is the moment. Let's talk about the way in which Social

Credit tries to put its house in order. It's a startlingly candid

little admission of the most amazing mistakes under Social Credit that

you could imagine even those incompetents would make. As I say, this

letter came out last year. It was published by the group-billing

section of the Medical Services Plan, and was addressed in this case to

a person whose name strategically has been erased. This candid little

memo reads:

"Due to an error which was beyond

the control of the group-billing section, the processing of changes

resulting from our yearly overage letters has been completely bungled.

Fix-up of this problem is on a priority basis, and we will forward the

correct identity cards as soon as possible. Some premium rates on your

invoice will be wrong as a result, and we ask that you wait until the

next invoice before advising us of any that appear to be wrong."

The memo was signed by the group-billing section, 1515 Blanshard Street, Victoria, B.C.

The

proud record of Social Credit, the government that accidentally wiped

out an insurance company and deliberately wiped out the Princess Marguerite

and has bungled away a hundred other public programs, now includes the

publication of this memo we released this morning in which it is

admitted: "Due to an error which was beyond the control of the

group-billing section, the processing of changes resulting from our

yearly overage letters has been completely bungled."

HON. MR. NIELSEN: What date is that, Charlie?

MR. BARBER:

It came out last year. I kept it until today for an appropriate moment.

The date I have for it is December 5, 1979, published in January 1980.

I'll send you my copy if you don't have your own.

Before

this government has the nerve to tell anyone else to put their own

house in order, they have to do so themselves. There's something

profoundly heartless about the approach that Social Credit in general

and this minister in particular take to the delivery of health services

in British Columbia. Any program the government sponsors requires money

to pay for it. That's obvious enough. Any program that is worth

sponsoring is probably worth sponsoring more of. That's obvious too.

There's never enough money to go around. Prudent, competent and able

governments are able to budget, plan and give priorities to their

spending accordingly. However, incompetent governments have a problem

doing that; heartless governments have an even greater problem doing

that.

Let me illustrate both — the heartlessness and the

incompetence of Social Credit. Why is it that their health policies are

in disarray? Why is it that their record of delivering health services

to the people of British Columbia is held to be so abysmal in the

esteem of the people of British Columbia? In

part it's because the

priorities Social Credit have chosen have always been those heartless,

gambling and big-ticket priorities of which we have more than ample

proof today. The minister tells us that in order to keep the House in

order and to manage the financial affairs of his own department, it's

necessary to send out — in the blunderbuss way he has — these memos

instructing people to cut services 10, 20 and 30 percent. In the

typically Socred heavy-handed, blunderbust method, they have ended up,

as the minister himself admitted this morning, "terrifying" citizens of

the province of British Columbia.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: They weren't sent to the citizens.

MR. BARBER:

The minister smirks and says: "They weren't sent to the citizens."

Perhaps they received it psychically. As the minister says, in the

province of British Columbia there are now — the quote is only three

minutes old; newspeak can't take effect yet — "absolutely terrified

clients." Who's the government, Mr. Chairman, the Vancouver Sun

or Social Credit? Who's the government, a local officer in the Ministry

of Health or Social Credit? Who's responsible for the "absolute terror,

" as the minister describes it, felt by seniors in British Columbia,

the Vancouver Province or the Minister of Health himself? It

clear we know who's in charge. They may not wish to be held responsible

for their own ineptitude and the heavy-handedness of their approach to

what they have described as a fiscal problem and as a management

problem within the Ministry of Health. The people of British Columbia

know who's responsible. After all, they did vote for you; they did

choose you and not the editor of the Vancouver Sun to govern their affairs. For you to purport that you are not responsible for the chaos, the shambles and the

[ Page 6163 ]

terror

of your own bungled policy is for you to purport something that, even

by the rules of newspeak, no one is going to believe.

Governments

are required to assign priority to public spending. You can never spend

enough on a good program. Every manager of a good program is going to

fight like heck at small treasury board and big treasury board to got

the money through. They're going to fight with their bosses, with the

deputies and with the minister. That's fair enough. That's how it

should be. The job of a cabinet is to assign priorities. Of course

long-term care needs more; of course homemaker services need more; so

does housing, so does transit, so does everything else that's a good

and worthwhile program. The government stands or falls, the government

succeeds or fails, on the ability it has to assign priorities to public

spending. What are the priorities of Social Credit? Are they in the

field of health? Well, apparently not, because, you see, it's in that

field that they're cutting back the hours.

For instance,

when you look at what they're doing to the lives of senior citizens,

who have been frightened — or, as the minister said, terrified — by the

cuts in hours that have been ordered across the board, and you examine

as well the way in which this government is prepared to spend money in

other fields — recklessly, gamblingly, carelessly, without any

restraint at all — then you know something about where the real

priorities of Social Credit lie; then you have some proof of their

heartlessness and their incompetence.

I have yet to see a

directive instructing the Deputy Premier (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) to hold

the line on Pier B-C. However, people in health care are instructed to

hold the line on homemaker services. What does that say about the

priorities of Social Credit? What does that say about the spending

plans of Social Credit? Well, it appears that if you are a senior

citizen and you need more hours, you just might not be able to get

them. Instead, Social Credit is spending the money on Pier B-C. I will

only briefly allude to it, Mr. Chairman, and then return to the

original estimate.

For purposes of comparison, the people of

British Columbia have to understand something about the priorities of

this coalition. The original budget for Pier B-C was $25 million. What

is it today? It's $92 million. Who's responsible for that mess? The

Deputy Premier. Who gets what she wants? The Deputy Premier. Who sends

memos to the Deputy Premier asking her to exercise restraint? No one.

Who sends memos to the field asking them to exercise restraint in

homemaker services? The Minister of Health. What does that tell you,

and what does that instruct you, and how does that inform you about the

priorities of Social Credit? The Deputy Premier can get anything she

wants. She can go from $25 million to $92 million for the Vancouver

convention centre and no one tells her to hold the line. However, in

the homemaker services, where the clients — as the minister confessed

this morning — are "absolutely terrified," we suddenly see restraint,

we suddenly see cutbacks and we suddenly see an attempt to hold the

line. What does that tell you about the priorities of Social Credit,

Mr. Chairman? It tells us simply and clearly and provably this: they

are heartless, careless and incompetent to deliver even their own

misguided policies.

However, there is further proof why this

minister's priorities are wrong, why they are heartless, why they are

provably against the interests of the people of British Columbia. If

the minister needed more money to provide the homemaker services that

this opposition supports, and that we wish he did, he might send a memo

to Douglas Heal and he might tell Mr. Heal that the $25 million being

spent on the propaganda to re-elect Social Credit could better be

employed in the homemaker services of the people of British Columbia.

But, no, this government is a bit too heartless for that, and it's a

bit too desperate to get re-elected. So instead we have a situation as

follows: Doug Heal gets memos telling him to hire Hollywood fixers.

MR. CHAIRMAN:

Hon. member, at this point the Chair must intervene. Standing orders

are quite explicit: we must be relevant to the ministry vote before us.

We are quite clearly on vote 106 in the estimates of the Ministry of

Health. I'm afraid that standing order 61(2) says that all debate in

Committee of Supply must be relevant to the minister whose vote is

before us.

MR. COCKE: On a point of order, Mr.

Chairman, I think that if you'll reread standing order 61 you will find

that the member is totally relevant in this particular situation. What

the member is doing is talking about the minister's vote and comparing

that ministerial vote with other governmental responsibilities. The

minister is part of the cabinet and therefore must participate in all

of the cabinet decisions. However, the decisions for which he is

directly responsible are those decisions around his ministry. In order

to make an argument, one must compare: otherwise, you can just condemn

any kind of debate in this chamber to being a tunnel-vision debate, and

it's just not acceptable.

MR. CHAIRMAN: For the

committee's edification, let me quote standing order 61(2): "Speeches

in Committee of the Whole House must be strictly relevant to the item

or clause under consideration." I would ask that all members of the

committee be reminded of that, and that we keep our remarks to the

minister's estimate, which is now before us.

MR. KING:

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I would just offer this. The

relevance test is a subjective test, and I submit to the Chair, with

due respect, that an argument of comparison is relevant. I further

submit that when there is a lack of adequate funding it is relevant and

acceptable to suggest where a source of adequate funding might be

found. Under any subjective analysis of what is relevant by practice in

this House — and, I think, by good order — that meets the test of

relevancy.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Members will of course be

reminded that, since the committee cannot increase a vote, that would

make quite a few arguments irrelevant. I'm sure the hon. first member

for Victoria understands the committee process, and I ask him to

continue with respect to vote 106, the Ministry of Health.

MR. BARBER: I hope I haven't lost any time from my allotted hours, If so, I'll just have to get up a second time.

was pointing out how if this government had a heart and a competent

policy it could reallocate funds. I mentioned Pier B-C and Mr. Heal's

$25 million propaganda budget. I did not mention the fact that this

minister used the government jet 208 times in the last fiscal year, and

the money that could be saved if some of that were diverted from the

Ministry of Health.

MR. D'ARCY: Where was he going?

[ Page 6164 ]

MR. BARBER: Mostly to Richmond, as far as we can tell, and usually by himself. However, that's a separate matter.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mostly by himself?

MR. BARBER: That's right. I think you took 97 trips by yourself, according to the logs. However, we'll get to that later.

this point I didn't observe the way in which the minister quite freely

spends the taxpayers' money to take jets back and forth from Victoria

to Vancouver and to other places, and instead sends out memos.

Apparently there was another one today or yesterday, which he almost

read into the record, telling people they mustn't create terror in the

hearts of the seniors. We know who frightens people in this province.

We know what they've done with rent controls to frighten tenants in

this province, but I won't mention that either. We know who's negative

about that stuff.

The minister says he intends to find out

why these clients are "absolutely terrified." Well, we ask him to look

no farther than the mirror. We ask him to look no farther than his

reflection in the latest glossy Socred publication promoting, as best

they can, the sorry image of the Premier of this province. He needs to

look no farther than that to find out who's responsible for the chaos,

fear and bungling of Social Credit health policies.

There

are many sources from which this government could, if it wished, obtain

additional funds to support the level of homemaker service to which the

people of British Columbia are entitled, as my colleague for New

Westminster (Mr. Cocke) put it, by right of citizenship. It's a pitiful

thing that seniors are now going to have to beg for attention and

favourable reassessment, and beg for what is, by right of citizenship,

due to them because of what they contributed to this province and this

country over many years. It's a pitiful thing that they have to worry

about whether or not their services will be cut back, and, if so, what

they are going to say to the assessor who comes around, and how best

they can put forward their own case. It's a pitiful and heartless

government that would require seniors to do that kind of thing, but

it's Social Credit, and we know what they stand for, and always have

stood for. It's Social Credit that the minister should look to when he

asks why it is clients are absolutely terrified of his own government's

policy. Let me repeat that the Vancouver Sun , the Province , the Victoria Times-Colonist ,

"Broadcast News" and all the rest of them did not make up this

government's policy — the government did. Are they responsible for the

absolute terror the citizens in British Columbia are feeling this

morning? I don't think so, because those newspapers, radio stations and

TV broadcasts are not the government; Social Credit is the government,

and they're responsible. The member for Richmond is the minister, and

he's responsible. To ask and suggest in the usual McCarthyesque way

that they're going to go on some kind of witch-hunt to find out why

this has happened and who's done it, to ask in the usual Nixonesque way

who's responsible for this getting out, is typical of the newspeak and

the negativism with which Social Credit has always been associated in

this province.

The minister says that he's going to find out

why this has happened. I urge him again to look at his own part. Look

at the way in which you blew it. Look at the way in which you

yourselves have proven to the people of British Columbia, once again,

that you're prepared to cut and chop any human service in order to

finance any big-ticket project you like.

That's what you're

doing here. We all know it, and the people know it too. Anything goes

for Pier B-C, but the same rules don't apply to the homemaker service.

Anything goes for the Deputy Premier. She gets whatever she wants, but

senior citizens don't get what they want or need. Anything goes for

northeast coal, but what sort of budget does the homemaker service get?

The minister, in the usual newspeak with which he's become so well

identified, tells us that the budget has gone up, but the services have

gone down. That's a strange approach. But that's the Social Credit

approach. We now find that we come to understand what the real

priorities of Social Credit are.

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I'll ask the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) not to interrupt.

MR. BARBER:

They're all nervous, and for good reason. They realize that this is the

sort of issue that defeats governments, and rightly so. This is the

sort of issue that defeats members for Richmond, and rightly so. This

is the sort of issue that sees only 15 people turn up to the annual

meeting of the Omineca Social Credit Association, and rightly so. Of

course they're nervous. We understand. We almost sympathize, but not

entirely. We sympathize a lot more with the senior citizens of this

province, who are the victims of Social Credit.

I have one final word on the homemaker service.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN:

Order, please. Once again I'll ask the committee to please come to

order. Standing orders don't permit us to interrupt a member when he's

speaking.

MR. BARBER: The final word is this — it's

by way of comparison, and I know you don't like comparison, so I'll put

it as quickly as I can. I said before that Social Credit, once again,

has taken a blunderbuss approach to what they consider to be a problem

of financial control. The blunderbuss they've applied was a memo that

has, in the words of the minister, "absolutely terrified" the seniors

of this province. They did it before. They did it when they took the

blunderbuss to the ferry rates in the province of British Columbia.

They doubled them overnight and all the tourists stayed home.

What

are they doing here? Once again, to remedy the problems of their own

internal incompetence and the failures of their own administration of

policy, and to clean up what they view as the problems of assessment,

for which they are responsible in the first place, they've committed

the same error in magnitude and content that they made when they

doubled the ferry rates overnight and ruined that service for a summer.

Why does Social Credit keep on making these mistakes? Could it be

simply because they are bunglers? Everyone knows they're bunglers.

Could it be because they've forgotten what little they may have learned

when they went to business school? That may also be true.

think a more fundamental reason is that they barely even care. They

just don't care. People in politics have to be motivated by some

conviction, heart and purpose and some

[ Page 6165 ]

sense

of drive and high principle. When you are motivated by those things, no

matter how your peers may judge them, at the very least, inevitably

within the core of them, there stands some heart and compassion.

Invariably, at least at the core of any policy, no matter how you may

dispute it, you can discover some human heart that says: we stand for

this; we believe in this; we will be counted on the side of these

things. Sometimes when governments are shaped and their policies are

moulded by the heart, even when they get into trouble, people still

respect their motives and principles and the human ambition that moved

them in the first place to try some brave thing in the name and

interest of the people of British Columbia.

When this

government gets into trouble, they don't have that to fall back upon.

This government has earned the reputation of being the most heartless

coalition of opportunists that has ever governed this piece of the

planet. So when they get into trouble, they can't pretend that it

wasn't their fault. They cannot succeed in blaming the media for their

problems with the people. No matter how many Hollywood fixers they

hire, that will never prosper. When they get into trouble, all they can

do is find ways to blame others, be it the government in Ottawa, the

senior citizens of British Columbia or the media. When they get into

trouble, they can't fall back upon anything full of heart and

conviction at the core of their policy, because they have none. At the

core of their policy is simply power. At the core of their policy is

simply the greed and the incessant demand to remain in power, and above

all to keep those terrible New Democrats out. That's what passes for

policy in Social Credit.

So when they get into trouble on

the homemaker issue, can they count on the people of British Columbia

feeling and understanding in a sensitive way? Will they say: "Well, we

know the Socreds meant well; they made a mistake here and we'll forgive

them? They can't count on that, Mr. Chairman, because the people of

British Columbia don't even believe that you actually meant well. They

don't actually find it within them to grant you that you meant well and

that your own heart was in the right place, because they find no

evidence that you've got a heart at all. That's one of the reasons why

Social Credit is so unpopular; that's one of the reasons why the

Premier personally is so unpopular; that's one of the reasons why this

policy the minister is trying to defend is so unpopular. When they make

mistakes, they cannot rely on the people of British Columbia to forgive

them by saying: "Well, at least they meant to do well, even if they

didn't achieve well." The reason the people of B.C. don't grant that is

that in almost six years of Social Credit they've yet to find any

evidence at all that something called heart and something called

compassion moves this group. They don't find the evidence, and neither

do we. This policy fails on the basis of that test also.

want to talk about another problem this government has the problem of

elective surgery. This is not a problem that has come up overnight.

They've been on notice for over two years that the crisis in acute-care

hospitals in British Columbia was looming, but in the last two years

spectacularly.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Two years?

MR. BARBER:

Two years. Un, deux; ein, zwei. Can you count these numbers? Two years,

Mr. Chairman. Hold up one hand, hold up the other and you can count

them, you don't even have to worry about the fingers.

For at

least two years they've been on formal notice about the crisis in

access required by persons booked for elective surgery here in Victoria

and everywhere across the province as well. On April 16, 1980, the

following letter was sent to the Minister of Health:

"Dear Sir:

"I've

just joined the ranks of those patients who've been told that they will

be admitted into the hospital for surgery and then have been told that

no bed was available and they will be rebooked. Relative to someone who

is awaiting a bed for open-heart surgery, my surgery is very minor.

However, I assure you that the anxiety this creates is no small matter.

No matter what the surgery, it is not possible to look forward to

having it done, but one does manage to prepare mentally for the

prospect. When one is prepared to have this done and then told that one

cannot be admitted, one has to re-prepare oneself again, and sometimes

again and again. It is very wearing on the nerves.

"Not

a small factor is the inconvenience to those who must arrange for a

replacement at work, those who will look after children at home, etc.

This must all be rearranged. I realize that I'm just one small voice

crying in the wilderness of Victoria, but I would like you to be aware

once more of the deplorable bed shortage situation in Victoria and of

how it affects some of us personally. This seems doubly deplorable when

one considers that we are said to have a very high doctor-patient

ratio, I look forward to seeing a solution to this very unhappy

situation."

I will not read the author's name, but I will

provide it privately to the minister. What was the reply of the

government in 1980?

I see the green light is on, and my

colleague from New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) will rise to provide

intervening business, or the minister may rise to reply.

HON. MR. HEWITT:

Mr. Chairman, if I may, I would just like to make a few comments. I've

sat here for quite a while listening to the first member for Victoria.

As a member sitting in a portfolio other than the Ministry of Health, I

just want to respond in general terms. For the last half hour or so,

the member over there has been talking about newspeak. I guess he has

researched 1984 , George

Orwell's great novel. The key to his whole speech is newspeak — how we

do things in the Social Credit Party and how we say one thing and do

another.

Well, Mr. Chairman, there is another word in George

Orwell's famous novel, and it's "doublespeak." That's what that member

has been doing, and that's what that party has been doing with regard

to health care, not just now but in 1979. The types of commercials they

ran during the election campaign.... They went and judged their whole

campaign on the backs of the sick and elderly in this province, and

they know it. They based their whole attack on government on the backs

of the sick, poor, handicapped and elderly of this province. And that

member for Victoria is the worst.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon.

member, as I reminded the committee not too long ago, the purpose of

Committee of Supply is to debate the administrative actions and the

estimates of the minister whose vote is before the committee. I would

remind all members, including the member now

[ Page 6166 ]

speaking, that relevant discussion concerns the administrative actions of the minister and the ministry.

HON. MR. HEWITT:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me then follow along on the administrative

actions of the Minister of Health and the estimates that we are dealing

with at the present time. Let me key in the word doublespeak. What that

member doesn't say is the fact that the budget under this Minister of

Health is approximately $2 billion — approximately one-third of the

total budget of this province. They are dollars spent for what purpose,

Mr. Member for Victoria? They are spent to assist those who need help

in health care, dental care, home care and hospital services.

The

member for Victoria knows full well that when he gets up and quotes

from his letters, abuses the Minister of Health and attacks this

government for newspeak, he is in effect using the famous approach in 1984

of doublespeak in attempting to say to the people of this province and

the people in this gallery that this government is heartless and

doesn't provide services to the people. He knows full well that the

revenues generated by the economy of this province are directed mainly

into those major areas of health, education and human resources.

Let's

look at the total budget and then take the capital expenditures in

regard to hospital construction in this province. They're far greater

than that party ever even dreamed of when they were government. We're

building more hospitals and providing more beds and more long-term and

intermediate-term care services than they ever dreamed of. Why? Because

this government recognizes you must have an economy that generates

revenues to provide the dollars for social services. That member thinks

money grows on trees. He has never even approached the idea that you

must have an economy to generate revenues so governments can perform.

Let's talk about home care, Mr. Member.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: You've lived off the dole all your life. You never did an honest day's work in your life.

MR. BARBER:

Wrong, wrong, wrong. I've worked in mines. I've worked on freighters.

I've worked in the forests, I've worked in fishing. It's more than

you've ever done.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I'll

ask the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development and the

first member for Victoria not to interrupt.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN:

Order, please. If members wish to carry on conversations while another

member is speaking, the Chair can facilitate that. The conversation

will continue in the corridors, but it will not continue in this

chamber. The Minister of Agriculture and Food has taken his place in

debate and will speak uninterrupted.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let's talk about home care. I apologize to the minister if I haven't

got the exact figures. The home-care budget was approximately $38

million last year. It has increased to $52 million for home-care

services. That member and other members opposite have stood up for the

past three days and attacked and attacked on the basis of cutbacks, and

yet — again doublespeak — they know full well that the increased

revenues that we have in this province have generated increased

activity in home care. The former Minister of Health sitting over there

had a weak excuse the other day. I asked him what he had in home care,

and he made some weak excuse about having had some in Human Resources.

That's where they had it, and I defy them to come up with any type of

figure that would equate anywhere near $52 million.

They keep attacking this government on the basis of assistance to

senior citizens. Let's go through them all. The SAFER program enabled

senior citizens to stay in their homes, apartments, rental

accommodation in spite of inflation. The Minister of Municipal Affairs

(Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) brought that program in to assist seniors.

Again, doublespeak on the part of the first member for Victoria, who

knows full well that this government has provided many services — far

more than you ever did — for the senior citizens. The dental care

program, under the Ministry of Health budget....

MR. KING: Dental care for the toothless.

HON. MR. HEWITT:

The member for Shuswap-Revelstoke says: "Dental care for the

toothless." You're saying to me that you figure every senior citizen in

this province has no teeth. Shame on you!

Interjections.

HON. MR. HEWITT:

Just an off-hand remark, eh? I just point out to you, Mr. Chairman,

that the comments made over there are based on headlines generated by

the NDP; that's how they base their whole argument. They haven't got

any argument against the fact that this government has provided the

greatest health budget in history. The amount of capital expenditure

for hospitalization, home-care services, denticare programs, universal

Pharmacare — you can name them on and on. We provided these programs,

and we have the homeowner grant for the seniors. The first member for

Victoria will say that doesn't come under the Ministry of Health. I can

appreciate that, but while I have the opportunity to say so, it is

another service to the senior citizens of the province.

Interjection.

HON. MR. NIELSEN:

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I believe you specifically

instructed members of the assembly not to interrupt the member who has

the floor. I note that the first member for Victoria continues to

interrupt the member who has the floor, and I wonder if, following your

direction, you're going to ask him to continue that conversation in the

corridor, as you suggested before.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That is not a point of order.

MR. COCKE:

My point of order is that the member for Victoria is quite a young man,

and he has been taking his leadership from the Minister of Health, who

continually interrupted his speech. So he's being influenced by the

Minister of Health. He should be proud.

MR. CHAIRMAN:

Order, please. Let's just review a couple of things here. Neither point

of order was a point of order. However, I think there might have been

some interrup-

[ Page 6167 ]

tion

because this is a heated debate, and secondly because the hon. Minister

of Agriculture was referring to other estimates. The Chair has already

told the committee that we must be strictly relevant. Analogies are

allowed from time to time; however, they cannot reflect on a vote that

has already been before the committee, or on a budget speech that might

have been before the House, or a vote that has not yet come to the

committee. That is why we must be strictly relevant. I'm sure all

members of the committee are reminded of that and are aware of that.

With that said, the Chair once again recognizes the hon. Minister of

Agriculture and Food.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman,

I will attempt to the best of my ability to keep my remarks related to

the Health minister's estimates. However, I will take my lead from some

of the comments made by the first member for Victoria, and I hope

you'll give me the same latitude that you gave him.

Let's

just talk about a personal issue that he brought up regarding the trips

of the Minister of Health — I think he mentioned approximately 250.

Under the estimates of the Minister of Health, this is doublespeak

again. The first member for Victoria knows full well, as do all other

members, that the home of the Minister of Health is in Richmond, and

that there is a scheduled flight that goes from Victoria to Vancouver

airport every day taking employees and ministers to Vancouver. It comes

back the next day, and it's a scheduled flight that flies whether it's

full or half-empty. The member also knows that the Minister of Health's

going home at night to see his wife and his several children indicates

a good thing. It indicates the heart of this minister. And that member

over there will continue to attack.... He talks about heart, Mr.

Chairman. He doesn't even understand the pressure that this Minister of

Health has had in stepping into his portfolio, dealing with the

doctors' situation. He will get up — and I've seen him do it for five

years — and, without any compunction at all, attack the character of an

individual on this side of the House, never thinking of the impact of

his remarks. I find that detestable.

MR. CHAIRMAN:

Let me point out to the committee one more point that has been made on

numerous occasions in times past. Personal allusions to another member

are considered unparliamentary. Once again, if we could restrict debate

to the administrative actions of the minister, the committee can

continue in order.

HON. MR. HEWITT: As I said to you

before, Mr. Chairman, I'll attempt to keep my remarks to vote 106,

except to say that I did take my lead from the member opposite who

brought up the issue. I was responding because the Minister of Health

probably wouldn't do that. He's too much of a gentleman.

would say to you that in regard to the $2 billion budget of the

Ministry of Health, if you went back and figured out what the budget

for the Ministry of Health was in the last years of the NDP, I doubt if

it was half that. If you looked at the economy of the province at that

time, when the government was going into a $260 million deficit, they

couldn't even pay the bills.

AN HON. MEMBER: We were all sick.

HON. MR. HEWITT: You're quite right, Mr. Member, the whole province was sick at that particular point in time.

closing I point out to you the size of that budget, the increase in

home care to the people of this province since this government has

taken office, the fact that the home-care program was brought in under

this government....

MR. COCKE: No. It wasn’t.

HON. MR. HEWITT:

The dear member for New Westminster knows that under Human Resources

there was something there, but he wouldn't expound on it, Mr. Chairman.

The

capital expenditures for hospitals in this province — acute-care.

Intermediate-care and long-term care beds — is second to none in Canada

with regard to what we've achieved, I guarantee you. I wasn't going to

speak in these estimates. But when that member for Victoria comes in

and starts talking about newspeak.... I remember George Orwell's great

novel, and I say that that member stands accused of doublespeak of the

worst order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The first member for Victoria rises on a point of order? No? In that case I recognize the minister.

MR. BARBER:

Then I am on a point of order. My point of order is based on the

tradition in this committee, which the Chairman knows at least as well

as I do, that we alternate debate. The government had a speaker; it's

our turn to have a speaker. I ask to be recognized on two counts: first

of all, by the binding tradition that sees that debate alternates; and

secondly, by the fact that I was on my feet before the Minister of

Health was.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The tradition in this

committee has been that debate alternates between members of political

parties as they may exist here and the minister. That is why the Chair

has recognized the minister. There will be ample opportunity in

committee to debate, as all members well know. In his estimates the

minister is quite normally recognized after a speaker.

HON. MR. NIELSEN:

I'll be brief, Mr. Chairman. In his remarks earlier today the member

for Victoria tried to exhibit how clever he is by playing games with

semantics, which is fine. I think anything that keeps him off the

streets is fine.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I will ask the hon. minister if he has made any imputation of improper motive.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: I can assure you that I have not.

When

we were speaking about the effect upon senior citizens of various

elements. It came to my mind that the first member for Victoria held up

a newspaper the other day in this House with a headline that read:

"Shut-in Seniors Damn Scared." If you could have seen the twinkle in

his eyes at that time.

Interjection.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: No, I'm giving you a lesson in reflection.

was as if to communicate: "Look what we've done and aren't we proud of

it." Otherwise why attempt to communicate such a message across the

floor of the House? "Look what we've done." Big deal! Some people in

our society believe that if they can use the elderly-scare the elderly,

the

[ Page 6168 ]

needy

or the poor — and gain some cheap little points, it's a worthwhile

endeavour. I don't share that view. If others do — fine. If that's what

you enjoy, Mr. Member, or anyone else — whatever turns you on — so be

it.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'll ask

all hon. members not to interrupt the minister who is speaking. I'll

ask the minister to please address the Chair. Then we can continue with

orderly debate.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Chairman, some

information was offered. A great deal of opinion was provided. But

recognizing that only a marionette responded to a jerk, I think I've

said enough.

MR. BARBER: I appreciate the objectivity of the Chair in calling the minister to attention in his last remarks.

was reading certain correspondence into the record which demonstrates

the way in which this government has been alerted, for some

considerable period, about the problem of access to acute-care beds in

British Columbia. I was observing, as well, the way in which they have

incompetently and heartlessly replied to this problem, which is not

just current but has been looming for at least two years.

want to read another letter, if I may, which was dated May 23, 1980.

It's signed by Robert J. Raine, MD. He's a physician in the fields of

internal medicine and gastroenterology here in Victoria.

MR. RITCHIE: What newspaper is that?

MR. BARBER: It's a letter. Do you listen to anything?

AN HON. MEMBER: Who did you ask to write it?

MS. BROWN: The signature is not phony either.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Will all hon. members please come to order.

MR. BARBER:

Dr. Raine, MD, addressed this letter to Mr. George Mussallem, MLA,

because, you see, the Social Credit Whip, who is a very influential

member of the coalition and who frequently reveals government policy

earlier than other ministers and members do, had made a very peculiar

charge against the doctors in regard, specifically, to the issue of why

it was that so many persons scheduled for elective surgery were then

denied it. The Minister of Health referred at some length, in his lame

defence of his policies, to the fact that the press, the NDP and

certain people whom he is yet to discover are responsible for the fact

that seniors are "absolutely terrified" of his own policies. Blaming

Ottawa is no new thing for Social Credit. Blaming the press is a very

old thing for Social Credit. Blaming the doctors, though, is a

relatively new thing for Social Credit. This was what the government

Whip did in 1980.

This is what Dr. Raine, MD in the city of Victoria, wrote in reply. He says:

"Dear Mr. Mussallem:

" In the B ritish Columbia Medical Journal of May 1980, you

are quoted in an

article by Dr. Gordon Ritchie, the chairman of our public affairs

committee, to the effect that there was no shortage of beds in the province,

but rather this was a false impression created by doctors. Dr. Ritchie goes

on to quote you, quoting directly: 'If the doctor is not ready to operate,

he always says, "I'll call you in when I get a bed." It doesn't

mean that there is a shortage of beds. It never did. There is no shortage of

beds.' "

Dr. Raine continues:

"It is hard

to believe that even a politician can be so incredibly stupid. I can

assure you that there is a shortage of beds. If you want to find out,

try to get into a hospital bed in Victoria without, of course, twisting

arms and using your political position as leverage to get yourself in

more quickly than the average Joe. In order for you to make such a

stupid remark, you must be either incredibly ignorant or totally

dishonest. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you

are simply ignorant.

"If you ever wonder why the Social Credit Party is in trouble

in this province, you might look at yourself in the mirror some day and see

the reason."

Well, a year ago this government's lame excuse for the shortage of hospital

beds and the problem of access to them was apparently, in the words of the government

Whip, quoted in a famous speech "many times" by us. It was only said

once by him, and then he beat a hasty retreat. The apparent reason for that

was that doctors were making excuses. If they really wanted to get you in they

could; but if they didn't, they would pretend there was a bed shortage.

Dr. Raine and many other physicians pointed out the unhappy nature of the remarks

of the government Whip and highly influential member of the Social Credit caucus,

defending his government's policy.

wrote a reply to Dr. Raine and concluded by saying: "I trust that Mr.

Mussallem's senior and influential position in his caucus does not

reflect government opinion of the medical profession." One always tries

to give the benefit of the doubt. However, having tried to go with that

excuse and having tried to blame it on the doctors, a year later this

government is now blaming it on everyone else but itself. They never

take responsibility for what they do unless it serves their purpose.

Otherwise they blame someone else — be it the Premier describing the

Prime Minister of Canada as an arsonist.... Remember that one, Mr.

Chairman? The Prime Minister, no matter who he is and no matter what

party he belongs to, doesn't deserve to be called that name by anyone,

least of all a Premier like this Premier. However these are the

standards of Social Credit.

This is a letter that was

written May 15 of this year to the Hon. J. Nielsen, Minister of Health.

Once again I will provide the address and name of this citizen

privately, if the minister wishes it. For a year, since the previous

correspondence I read, this government has been on written notice of

the problem of getting into beds in hospitals for elective surgery. Has

it gotten any better? No, Mr. Chairman, it's gotten worse. The horror

stories increase in number and in problem. The letter this year — just

another letter; we've all got dozens — illustrates it.

"Dear Sir:

would like to take the time to inform you of what it is like to be a

taxpayer booked for elective surgery in Victoria. One and a half years

ago I was referred to an orthodontist for treatment of a severe

overbite, periodontal problems and extensive crowding

[ Page 6169 ]

of teeth. I am an adult, 32 years of age. As you can imagine,

the prospect of a two-year treatment plan consisting of braces and surgery seemed

formidable. When weighed against the alternative, loss of my teeth, I chose

the treatment plan outlined by my orthodontist.

"This

treatment plan has required the coordination of two specialists, the

orthodontist and the oral surgeon, not to mention a large expense on my

part. When I was notified of the surgery date of April 8, 1981, I was

pleased to think that the end of the treatment was in sight. I made

arrangements at my office for someone to substitute for me, and since

my surgery and recovery period coincided with the school spring break,

I didn't have to make day-care arrangements for my two elementary

school age children.

"I was notified at 2 p.m.

on the day of my supposed hospital admission that my surgery had been

cancelled because of the critical bed shortage. I was forced to make

last-minute day-care arrangements for my children and felt responsible

for the confusion in my office. I have been given another tentative

date for surgery, which is May 21. During this waiting period I've been

very upset, and have had to get a prescription for tranquilizers from

my doctor to enable me to function at my job and care for my family. I

have found this tension has affected my attitude to my family, causing

me to be impatient and unpleasant with them, and has made it very

difficult for me to concentrate on my job, because I am always

preoccupied with this uncomfortable situation.

would like to say that it is time that something was done to enable

people who pay taxes for services to which they are entitled to have

access to the treatment which they require. There are many extremely

ill people waiting for hospital beds, and it is a disgraceful situation

for our sophisticated society to tolerate. Also, although my surgery

isn't urgent from a health point of view and nobody ever died from an

overbite, many people in our affluent society fall early victims to

stress and tension.

"Thank you for taking the time to read my letter."

That's

a simple human problem. Someone takes the word of a hospital that

they're going to get in. Someone makes arrangements — emotionally and

mechanically — to look after their kids and have someone else at the

job. The hospital says: "Sorry, we can't take you; there's no room."

And you have to go through it all over again. I've got letters from

correspondents in my riding who have had to go through this nonsense

four times. Surgery was planned; arrangements were made for it; it was

cancelled at the last moment, and that happened three more times until

they finally got in on the fifth try.

This isn't as bad,

obviously, as people being denied immediate access to neurological

surgery, as has happened at the Royal Jubilee, or as cancer patients

who come down to Victoria — in a famous case that was in the newspapers

— and are denied entry at the Royal Jubilee. Nonetheless these are very

human and very important problems for the citizens who face them.

What's the reply of this minister? Well, you heard it this morning, Mr.

Chairman. You may have taken it seriously and you may think it's a

legitimate and compassionate reply. We don't at all. They've got 25

million bucks to spend on Socred propaganda. That's ridiculous! They

should reduce it to 25 cents and put $24 million into the homemaker

service, long-term care and all the other ancillary treatments,

services and facilities required by sick people in this province. Only

a ghoul would vote $25 million for Socred propaganda and tolerate a cut

in services for the homemaker program of British Columbia. Only ghouls

would do that.

The health policies of this government are

unacceptable to the people of this province and to this opposition.

This ministers excuses for them are even more unacceptable. We'll keep

asking questions and making speeches until they reconsider and provide

a health policy which is authentically compassionate, appropriate and

well funded.

HON. MR. HYNDMAN: With the leave of the House, might I make two introductions?

Leave granted.

HON. MR. HYNDMAN:

With great pleasure I welcome two visiting school groups here this

morning. Firstly, a group of students from Corpus Christi School in

south Vancouver are here in the precinct. Secondly, on behalf of the

member for Delta (Mr. Davidson), who cannot be in the chamber this

morning, would members welcome 26 grade 7 students from Port Guichan

Elementary School who are in the gallery with their teacher Mr. Jim

Green.

MR. KING: I would also ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. KING:

Visiting the buildings today from Grindrod are a group of 15 grade 7

students from Grindrod Elementary School along with their principal Mr.

Peebles. I would ask the House to welcome them also.

MS. BROWN: Can you tell me whether the minister will be returning to the chamber today?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair has no knowledge, hon. member. We are on vote 106.

MS. BROWN:

Mr. Chairman, it doesn't make sense to make comments to the minister if

the minister is not here. I would like to move that the committee rise,

report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 15

Barrett

King

Lauk

Stupich

Dailly

Cocke

Hall

Leggatt

Levi

Gabelmann

D'Arcy

Brown

Barber

Hanson

Mitchell

NAYS — 24

Waterland

Hyndman

Chabot

McClelland

Rogers

Smith

Hewitt

Jordan

Ritchie

Richmond

Ree

Wolfe

McCarthy

Williams

Gardom

Bennett

Phillips

Fraser

Nielsen

Kempf

Davis

Segarty

Curtis

Mussallem

[ Page 6170 ]

On vote 106.

MR. KING:

Mr. Chairman, I want to say how very disappointed I was with the

minister's reply to my colleague the first member for Victoria (Mr.

Barber). Rather than addressing the concerns raised by the member, the

minister got up and, in a very sarcastic and derisive form for a

minister of the Crown, attempted to assassinate the character of my

colleague. That is not in keeping with the responsibilities of a

minister of the Crown, and it certainly is not very positive in terms

of bringing a reasoned and logical debate to the very important area of

health care in the province of British Columbia.

The first

member for Victoria and, I suspect, most members of this House have

received letters from constituents, particularly senior citizens, all

over the province, expressing concern basically about two issues, both

of which were so eloquently outlined by my friend: the curtailment of

the home-care program; and the issue of appropriate beds to accommodate

surgery when required — there are serious delays in that respect. When

those delays are imposed through a lack of adequate acute-care beds,

then it is a threat and it is highly detrimental to the health care of

the people of this province. For the minister somehow to try to twist

that issue around and make it a figment of the opposition's imagination

is simply to demonstrate that the minister is either not sensitive

enough to the needs of the people or that he has lost touch with

reality. Many of the letters we've received are copies of letters

directed to the minister himself. He must know the anxiety of the

people out there who are suffering because they need surgery to remedy

some serious illness and cannot get a bed for months on end either in

this city or in many other cities around the province where there are

long lists of people waiting for elective surgery.

I say

it's not good enough. I think it's really a shameful display for the

minister to get up and somehow attribute the blame for this dilemma to

the newspapers and the NDP opposition. That minister shows a total

irresponsibility when he strikes that posture. He, along with his

government, is responsible for setting priorities, for the allocation

of funds and for earmarking money to construct the necessary hospitals;

he and he alone — not the opposition, not the newspapers. He's fond of

reciting phrases. Well, one of the other phrases that he might well

think about is the futility of shooting the message-carrier. The

newspapers and the media carry the message largely as it is; they don't

manufacture the news. I'm surprised that a minister who himself was

involved in the media is prepared to attack the media and to suggest

that they are somehow responsible for the dilemma that he and his

government have created.

There is great concern out there in

the community. There certainly is concern in this city, which has a

very large population of senior citizens. When they face a six-month

delay in obtaining a bed to take care of their surgery needs, it has to

be damaging to their health and it has to be threatening to their

security. Certainly they have cause to be frightened.

terms of the other headlines in the newspapers about cutbacks in home

care, the minister suggesting that a member of this Legislature took

delight in reporting that is totally insulting. Again, it's an attempt

by the minister to try to set up some diversionary tactic. When is he

going to take responsibility for coming to grips with the problem and

quit attacking members of the Legislature who bring the matter to this

attention? When is he going to stop attacking the press and start

telling us about plans to remedy the deficiency in hospital beds and to

bolster the home-care program so that there is adequate funding, so

that we don't see 600 hours cut from the home-care program through the

length and breadth of this province?

I would remind the

minister that a year ago the home-care service in the city of

Revelstoke was completely abolished. A year ago a lady contacted me.

She had had surgery in the Kelowna General Hospital, which is the

regional hospital for the area, and because the home-care program in

Revelstoke had been cancelled — not solely because of funding in that

case, but certainly partially — this lady was unable to get dressing

changes and the kind of follow-up service that should have been

available. As a consequence, she had to go to the hospital and have a

longer stay at a much higher cost in acute care than the cost of the

homemaker service would have been. That's false economy, Mr. Minister.

What we would like to have, rather than insulting remarks, rather than

a whole demeanour that's completely arrogant, in my view, is to hear

from the minister what he has in mind for improving these two very

important fundamental areas of health-care needs in the province.

colleague the first member from Victoria was dealing with real issues

that his constituents are facing. I submit, Mr. Chairman, he had some

cause to display some emotion and be concerned about the plight of

those people. Listen to the minister, Mr. Chairman! He sits there with

these asinine little remarks and grunts and groans to every statement

the members of the opposition make. Mr. Chairman, if that's the level

of intelligence that the minister has, then I suggest to you he's not

even fit to occupy the chair of Minister of Health.

MR. CHAIRMAN:

Hon. member, the committee cannot decide whether a minister should be

in cabinet or not. That is unparliamentary and is not relevant to the

debate. I'm sure the hon. member now taking his place in debate is

aware of parliamentary language, and I'll ask him to continue.

MR. KING:

Mr. Chairman, I'm also aware of the parliamentary rule, which the Chair

enforces, that requires that members not continually interrupt when a

member has the floor. I would expect that the minister whose estimates

are before the House for debate would pay some respect to the House and

to members who are trying to make points on behalf of their

constituents for the improvement of the area of administration he holds

and is paid well to supervise. That's what the debate's about. It is a

little bit annoying when the minister acts like a juvenile, rather than

responding to these submissions in a serious way. To sit there and make

those intermittent staccato noises is a bit annoying, Mr. Chairman.

simply appeal to the minister to take these matters seriously, whether

or not he likes the messengers or the methods by which these

representations are submitted. The basic issues are: what is he going

to do to ensure that there is an adequate level of home care service

for senior citizens in this province, and what plan does he have to

ease the bed shortage so people don't have to have their elective

surgery cancelled up to five times, with months of delay and with all

the anxiety and social pressures that creates in the home life of those

people? They're the issues. It doesn't matter what kind of political

shots the minister wants to take across the floor at the people

carrying this message. We were all elected 'here and try to represent

people. Until the minister gives some intelligent responses to policy

matters, I can suggest to

[ Page 6171 ]

you

that we're going to be in this House a long time debating the Health

estimates. I simply ask that the minister get down to those issues and

tell us what plans he has, so the people of the province will not be

terrified, as he has indicated they are at the moment.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It has been pointed out many times this morning that we cannot interrupt another member.

HON. MR. NIELSEN:

It's somewhat difficult to respond to the last member's questions,

since they were generally statements rather than questions. I'm sure

examination of the Blues will perhaps produce questions that could be

accorded an answer at some time.

In his final comments, the

member was asking what policies were available with respect to various

levels of care. Mr. Member, perhaps over the weekend you'll have the

opportunity of reading the Blues of recent debate in the House —

yesterday and today. I think you'll find answers to most of your

questions there.

Mention was made of the Revelstoke

homemakers' association, or words to that effect, and I'd be pleased to

look at the history of that.

MR. COCKE: I too, am

disappointed that in the debate, on the proper level of care, the level

of care which is most economic is being approached as a priority

matter. We've ascertained that in our opinion it's not. What did we get

for this? We have conducted a relatively quiet debate. The minister, on

the other hand, has indicated very clearly that the press, the

opposition and others are using scare tactics in order to reduce the

minister's ability to produce or in order to make the minister look

foolish and scare the patients. What the member for Victoria did was

talk of that as being totally irresponsible. I went over just a few

headlines to rethink the whole question the minister brought up.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Newspaper research.

MR. COCKE: That mouthy member for....

MR. CHAIRMAN:

Order, please. I'll ask the Minister of Agriculture and Food not to

interrupt, and I'm afraid I'll have to ask the hon. member for New

Westminster to withdraw the comment.

MR. COCKE: Certainly.

What

the minister did to begin with yesterday — those of us that were here

were listening — was read headline after headline. I've alluded to

them, and so on and so forth. However, to use that as the one ministry

that should be sheltered from that is not responsible. The member for

Victoria said very clearly that where those headlines are the minister

should be able to defend them. On the other hand, the minister feels

he's getting a dirty deal from the press and opposition. We're

suggesting that if that's the case the minister is really giving his

constituency, which is the health-care people and those in need of

health care, a dirty deal. There's no need to use those headlines or

any other aspect of reporting as being something that is an attack on a

particular person or ministry. But it does reveal a problem. If the

minister can't understand that it's revealing a problem, then he's got

something to contend with over the next while, because he is in a

problem situation. That is a tough ministry.

"Hospitals

Living Hand-to-Mouth to Juggle Financing." That's a headline. Is it

unfair? I don't think so. I've talked to hospitals all across the

province who have said exactly that. What do you expect to get for it?

Something buried under the want-ads? Of course you don't.

"Hospitals

Overcrowded. but It's Not a Crisis." That's where they were using some

of the minister's words. "Minister Calls Shortage of Hospital Beds a

Jam-Up." There are two headlines he got for one — two positives and one

negative.

"Crisis in Local Hospitals." This is quoting Dr. Scott Wallace.

You

see, Mr. Chairman, he gets it both ways. If he doesn't want the

headlines that don't indicate his words, then he should also call for

the newspapers not to say anything positive. I've seen a lot more

positive than the ministry presently deserves. Clear and simple. The

member for Victoria took exception to this whole question of "blame the

press, blame the media and blame the opposition." In our parliamentary

process, in the British parliamentary tradition, the opposition's role

is to oppose. You'll be in opposition and you'll have ample opportunity

to find out what it's all about, if you're lucky enough to win your

seat. I shouldn't have pointed that out to you, because I doubt if

you'll win your seat: but some of you will.

The opposition's role is to oppose. When that minister was still running a rinky-dink credit union....

MR. CHAIRMAN:

One moment, please. Heated debate can be accepted; however, personal

allusions are most unparliamentary. The Chair has noticed that personal

allusions are most likely to occur when other members are interrupting

the member who is speaking. If the committee could remember that, then

the committee would be well served and we could proceed with orderly

debate.

MR. RITCHIE: On a point of order, just a

couple of days ago we had the board of the B.C. Central Credit Union in

our caucus. I have a tremendously high regard for that organization, as

do all of my colleagues. I would suggest that the member for New

Westminster be asked to withdraw.

MR. CHAIRMAN:

That's not a point of order, hon. member. The Chair recognizes the

member for New Westminster, who will debate in committee uninterrupted.

MR. COCKE: I will withdraw that remark. I was referring to the management. I wasn't really referring to the credit union.

want to culminate this debate by asking that we come back here Monday

and discuss in a reasonable way some of the problems that are occurring

in the Ministry of Health. We began that way. I don't really think any

of us should be blaming anybody. I think we should be going on and

trying to develop a better health-care delivery system in our province.

All of us should be working towards that. I give you this undertaking:

the opposition will criticize because that's our responsibility. But we

will be giving as responsible criticism as we can. You talk about

research. I tell you this: when the present government was in

opposition, we saw the research it was really something.

Anyway, Mr. Chairman, we'll revert on Monday to this.

Interjection.

[ Page 6172 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. COCKE: I yield to the minister.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Just to clarify a situation with respect to headlines, the headlines which were discussed on Thursday — which would be in Hansard

— were not with respect to homemaker care. I think one of the members

said that day after day there are headlines with respect to hospital

shortages, beds and so on. I referred to a series of headlines. Perhaps

just so everyone understands, the headlines I gave — and here are only

a few — are: "Beds Face Shutdown, Hospital Short of Nurses, " May 31,

1973; "Hospitals Cutting Capacity Because of Nurse Shortage, " June 14,

1973; "Hospital Costs up $39 Million, " November 9, 1973; "Interference

by Minister, " March 26, 1974; "Health Care Lacking in Isolated Areas,

" March 26, 1974; "Slash $260 Million Plans, Hospital Told, " September

25, 1974; "Hospital Jam Probably Causing Deaths, " October 1974;

"Occupancy Sometimes Over 100 Percent," October 1974; and so on. I

wanted just to advise the member that those headlines, which were not

identified by date previously, were not with respect to the present

argument in debate.

Interjection.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Chairman, I'll make that decision, unless the floor wishes to do so again.

MR. COCKE: I never whined about my press.

HON. MR. NIELSEN:

The member for New Westminster says that he didn't whine about it. It's

probably one of the few times in his life when he didn't.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The Chair has already reminded the committee about personal allusions. I find that most unparliamentary.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: I'll withdraw then.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

Division in committee ordered to be reported in the Journals of the House.

HON. MR. ROGERS:

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to respond to questions standing in my

name on the order paper. One of the questions is in the form of a very

detailed response. In that regard, I am filing it in the form of a

return.

I request leave of the House to file a special memorandum regarding Garibaldi.

Leave granted.

Hon. Mr. Curtis tabled an answer to question number 49 standing on the order paper.

Hon. Mr. Rogers moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 12:55 p.m.

Appendix

23 Mr. Skelly asked the Hon. the Minister of Environment the following questions:

1. What was the total amount of flood compensation paid by the Provincial Government during the calendar year 1980?

2. Of the $13,000,000 allocated under Order in Council 2861/80 how much was spent and for what specific purposes?

What additional funds were allocated by the Provincial Government to

compensate for flood damage in the calendar year 1980 and under what

statutory authority?

4. What are the names and addresses of

individuals, corporations, and government agencies which received flood

relief funds for flood damage in 1980, and what was the dollar amount

of relief paid in each case?

The Hon. C. S. Rogers replied as follows:

" 1. $6,181,004.33.

"2.

No funds were expended from the allocation in 1980. Between January 1,

1981 and March 15, 1981, $1,543,362.21 was spent for the following

purposes: Journals with other ministries, $8,830.52; individuals,

$1,486,199.81; Indian bands, $20,505.38; small businesses, $15,367.39;

municipalities, $6,387.99; helicopter, $6,071.12; total, $1,543,362.21.

"3. During 1980 an additional amount of $500,000 was allocated

for flood damages which occurred in Southwest British Columbia in December 1979,

and $2,000,000 was allocated for damages in the Bella Coola Valley in early

December 1980.

[ Page

6173 ]

With respect to Mr. Skelly's fourth question, the Hon. C.

S. Rogers stated that he had no objection to tabling the information in the

form of a Return.

49 Mr. Stupich asked the Hon. the Minister of Finance the following question:

Since

the inception in 1966, what has been the total amount made available to

the Province of British Columbia from Canada Pension Plan funds and how

has this been allocated?

The Hon. H. A. Curtis replied as follows:

"$2,679,986,000

to March 31, 1981 allocated as follows: B.C. Hydro, $975,730,000; B.C.

School Districts, $832,062,000; B.C. Hospitals, $492,259,000; B.C.

Railway, $185,327,000; B.C. Educational Institutions, $117,222,000;

B.C. Buildings Corporation, $77,386,000; total, $2,679,986,000."

[ Return to Legislative Assembly Home Page ]

Copyrigh