Support For Cardiac Unit

I agree with Dale Dirks. The time for a comprehensive cardiac care unit in the Okanagan is now. Sindi Hawkins never did respond to this issue during the campaign. Currently some 800 people a year leave the Okanagan and Southern Interior for Cardiac care in Vancouver or Victoria. People are kept waiting here for a bed the lower mainland, meaning we wait longer for treatment.

Costs for families are higher too as they have to put out for travel and a place to stay while they wait for their loved one to have surgery. Often this means taking time away from work which means reduced income. To add insult to injury, they charge you for the patients travel to Vancouver or Victoria.

A new cardiac unit would go much further to improving people's health care in the Okanagan than a medical school.

Rick Barnes