City Council plans for Health Advisory Committee seemingly still on hold

Health care in the community made for a brief mention at
Monday's  Prince Rupert City Council session at the Lester Centre

Close to six months after the call for a Health Advisory Committee in Prince Rupert was revived by Councillor Barry Cunningham, the project remains one that is seemingly in a stalled state, the latest update on the project provided by way of a short comment in the waning moments of Monday's Prince Rupert Council Session.

Towards the initiative that appears to continue to have problems gaining any traction, Councillor Cunningham asked about the progress of plans to invite representatives from Northern Health to attend a Council session, something that is to be the first step it seems towards creating the Advisory Committee.

Mayor Lee Brain turned to the city's Corporate Administrator Rosa Miller for any updates on the status of that planned gathering; in reply Ms. Miller noted that she had received a correspondence that evening from Northern Health seeking a conversation on the topic before setting any dates up.

The Corporate Administrator observing that she would arrange for that conversation in September, though no timeline as to when the public information session may take place was offered up on the night.

Councillor Cunningham brought the topic of the need for the Health Advisory Committee back to the front burner in March, with a few enquiries as to its progress along the way through the Spring and Summer.

Council made their first invitation towards setting up the public information sharing session back in May.

The desire to create a Health Advisory Committee is not a recent concept, dating back more than a few years, occasionally raised in the Council chamber and then seemingly put on a to do list that never seems to get completed.

The stalled nature of the initiative comes as community residents continue to express some of their frustrations on elements of health care services in the community through Social media. 

The growing level of issues of note confirmed by Councillor Randhawa on Monday who observed on some of the concerns that he has heard from residents in recent months. 

He noted that among some of those issues raised were concerns over ambulance service in the community.

Prince Rupert. City Council is currently on its once a month schedule for public Council sessions, so the next opportunity for an update from the Mayor would be when they next meet on September 20th.

You can review the brief exchange on the topic from the City's Video Archive starting at the 59 minute mark.

More notes on the Monday evening Council session can be explored from our Council Timeline.

Further items of interest from Council are available from our Council Discussion archive.

On themes of Health care in the region, you can explore some of the past topics of note from our achieve page here.