Perceptions by Gerry Warner

Ever wonder why healthcare takes up more than 40 per cent of the B.C. budget? Well, we have a good example right here in Cranbrook. In fact, you need to go no further than the East Kootenay Regional Hospital to know why many fear the day is coming when healthcare will take up more than 50 per cent of the provincial budget.

It’s that big hole in the ground next to the hospital that explains more than anything why healthcare costs seem to be spiraling out of control. Within a year or so that big hole will be a shiny, new, $20 million Intensive Care Unit that may someday save your life or mine and who could argue against that?

And do you know how many more ICU beds we’re getting for $20 million? Well, you could count them on one hand. Two! That’s right. Two! Our new ICU will have six beds, which is two more that we have now. Now if that doesn’t cause you to shake your weary head I don’t know what will.

But wait! There’s an explanation. In fact, I’d hoped to get the explanation Thursday when the chief paymaster of the province, Premier Christy Clark, made a luncheon appearance at the Cranbrook and District Chamber of Commerce. They asked for questions to be submitted on paper, which I did, but the questions were vetted and mine didn’t make the cut. Oh well, I’m still glad to explain what the premier didn’t get a chance to say about why our ICU is so expensive.

For starters, intensive care medicine is very expensive wherever it takes place and Cranbrook is no exception. Intensive care is usually only offered to patients whose condition is potentially reversible and who have a good chance of surviving with ICU support. In general, it’s the most expensive, technologically advanced and resource-intensive area of medical care. An  American study in 2000 estimated  ICU care to cost from US$15 billion to US$55 billion annually and took up 13 per cent of all hospital costs. That’s a lot of money and no doubt similar sums get spent in Canada. Funding for our $20 million ICU is being shared by the province ($11.93 million) the Kootenay East Regional Hospital District ($7.95 million) and the hard-working East Kootenay Foundation for Health which is contributing $120,000.

And what will we get when the project is completed in mid-2016?

According to an IHA news release, we’ll have an 8,470 sq. ft. building with two additional high acuity beds and a better flow through unit for physicians with additional privacy and integrated family spaces with maximized natural light. Despite this, one local physician I spoke to called the unit “controversial” because it doesn’t provide enough ICU beds.

However, Kootenay East Hospital District Chair John Kettle says the $20 million spent on the facility is money well spent because originally there wasn’t going to be a new ICU at all just a long overdue electrical upgrade to the hospital as a whole. “In reality, we killed two birds with one stone because if these projects were done separately it would have cost $2.5 million more and the electrical upgrade alone would have cost $8 million. Instead we bundled the projects and got the electrical upgrade and a new ICU. This was taxpayers’ money spent wisely.

The new electrical infrastructure with its state of the art switching will be located in the basement of the new ICU which actually helped to lower the cost of the project, Kettle says. The new electrical system will improve the power supply to the entire hospital, optimize electrical performance and allow for future expansion, according to an IHA release.

Twenty million for only two more ICU beds seems a tad excessive indeed and I can well understand controversy over the expense. But when all the facts are considered, it appears the money was indeed “well spent” and it may be careful spending like this that will forestall the day when provincial health care costs eat up more than half the budget.

– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and a Cranbrook City Councillor, who hasn’t used the ICU yet. His opinions are his own.

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