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jps

On Thu, 3 Jan 2008 06:11:48 -0800 (PST), wrote:

On Jan 2, 7:01*pm, Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
Woman waits in California hospital for a bed to open up here
Wednesday, January 02 - 11:30:00 AM

Lyle Fisher
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - A Surrey woman's holiday in California has
turned into a healthcare nightmare. The 68-year old needed emergency
surgery after her appendix burst, but now she can't come home due to a
lack of hospital beds.

Arlene Meeks has been in a California hospital since December 17th.
Her family has been trying to get her transferred back to the Lower
Mainland for 2 weeks now but they haven't had any luck.

Stephen Harris with the South Fraser Health Region says the issue is a
shortage of ventilated intensive care unit beds, which are highly
specialized. He says over the holidays, it's not surprising to see
those beds filled up.

Harris says as soon as a bed becomes available, Meeks will be
transferred to a local hospital. Arlene's daughter Kim says her mom is
'frustrated as hell', and she just wants to come home.

NDP Health Critic Adrian Dix says the issue is one that's continued to
plague the Lower Mainland and he's blaming Liberal government cuts to
acute care beds. "The number of acute care beds in British Columbia
was reduced by 1,300 in the first mandate of the government, and some
of the new facilities being opened won't be adding to that number."

Dix says the Vancouver Coastal and Fraser Health authorities issued
reports last fall indicating they are 650 acute care beds short right
now.

The trouble is, you right wingers only look for the bad things about
any system you don't like. Why don't you find the good things, and
post them as well, if you want to come off as balanced. Same with
global warming!

If it were up to them, all air would look like Los Angeles', the water
would resemble Love Canal in the 70s and we'd be ingesting carcinogens
with every bite.

Business and industry should always be left to profit unfettered for
those who believe in the sanctity of life -- that is right up until
you're born. Then you'd bloody well better be prepared to pull
yourself up by your bootstraps and pay for your portion of our
national debt, currently estimated at $40K/person at the time of
birth.

That's debt to pay not for health care, it's to pay for bombs, an
under-valued military and tax breaks for business and the rich.

Hell, the conservatives don't even want to give health care to the
thousands of kids who come home maimed from our oil wars.

Conservatives - there's little about them that is.

jps