"Quite a while back, the mayor and I discussed starting a medical, or health advisory committee and I'm thinking now in today's world that it's something that we should look into getting start in the next little while. I know, Lee and I have talked about it, the Mayor and I have talked about it and it's just something with Doctor's retiring and recruitment/retention being something that's not on everyone's mind and that.
And other problems we're having with our hospital and our health system. I think it would be good to have an advisory committee from the community and that community includes the First Nations Villages around here, because they're very dependent on our hospital and that.
So I'd like to see us maybe make some inroads. I know we're going to be very busy over the next couple of meetings, but I would like to see if we can get that on the Agenda in the next couple of meetings if possible."
In a reply to the Councillors reminder, Mayor Brain observed that he and the Councillor could work on it together to see if they could put something together for one of the future council meetings.
Mr. Cunningham has long been an advocate for the creation of a health advisory group for the region, seeking to bring community members, as well as local and First Nations governments together to advocate for medical care and ensure that Prince Rupert does not see any erosion of medical services.
He outlined some of those concerns two years ago, when he again brought up the idea of forming the advisory group, speaking at the time as to his concerns over the plans for a larger profile for Mills Memorial Hospital in Terrace and how it could impact on services in Prince Rupert.
"I'm a little concerned about us possibly losing some of our services and as we discussed once before, bringing up a health advisory group, and I wold like to maybe in the next meeting discuss that or actually bring the points to do that" -- Councillor Cunningham on Health care concerns in Prince Rupert back in May of 2019
There are no shortage of concerns to be found when it comes to the level of health services in the community, one source of information on those issues is the Prince Rupert focused Facebook page hosted by Northern Health where local residents regularly ask questions about health care in the community.
More items of interest on health care in Prince Rupert can be reviewed from our archive page here.
Mr. Cunningham and the Mayor Discuss the topic of the proposed committee at the one hour, four minute mark of Monday's City Council session .
An expanded look at Monday's Council Session can be explored through our Council Timeline Feature.
Further background on City Council Discussion themes is available here.
It's a regional hospital, not "our" hospital that "they" the First Nations are also dependent on. Inviting First Nations to give advice to the city council is no doubt well intended but is also rather paternalistic. The city council should be working collaboratively with First Nation governments within the region, not acting as if it's the senior government within the region.
ReplyDeleteAgreed on the paternalistic sentiment expressed by Barry. But even more concerning is his inaction on this file.
ReplyDeleteUnlike the NCR claims, Barry’s so-called "advocacy" is really just complaining. at council he only ever uses the end of the meetings to grab headlines for himself by grumbling about the hot topic of the week. he talks loud but doesnt ever seem to do the work .
Feels important to note that Barry is also the City’s regional hospital board rep. So any deterioration of services is happening on his watch.
Instead of being in a state of constant protest and fixation on problems, he should be building consensus around whatever he thinks the actual solution is.
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
You pretty much capture the recurrent themes: the protest that's late in the meeting so there's no real discussion; the absence of solutions other than possibly creating a new process rather than identifying a way forward to a clear result.
ReplyDeleteBarry's protests, if they can be called that, seem to be vetted by the mayor, who he assures us he has talked to, but it was evidently a back room discussion between the two of them.