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.