Would-be Liberal leader candidate George Abbott was in town recently fretting about Interior Health’s indifference to the locals when health care decisions (read changes/cuts) were made.
Is this not the same George Abbott who was minister of health services for the province of B.C. from 2005 to 2009?
The same Mr. Abbott who did not listen to the people of B.C. in 2007 when he initiated the “Conversation on Health,” which cost B.C. tax payers $14 million? He wanted to know what kind of health care we wanted in the future. When the answer came back firmly that B.C. residents wanted publicly funded, not-for-profit health care, the report was quietly shelved and nothing more was heard of it.
Since then Mr. Abbott, and his successor, Mr. Kevin Falcon, have pursued a policy of privatizing our health care system, centralizing services so that we can’t get to them, cutting services so we have to dig into our own pockets, and creating havoc in the lives of the vulnerable, frail, sick and elderly amongst us.
Let us be clear that the decisions Interior Health makes for the West Kootenay are, at all times, dictated by policies that come directly from the minister of health services.
What we have here is a clear-cut case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Sally Williams
Chair, Castlegar & District Health Watch Society