I first started working at Penticton Regional Hospital in 1972 and later transferred to Continuing Care at the Health Unit. I am now retired. There are fewer inpatient beds now than when I started.
Ambulatory care and day care surgeries have exploded in numbers. Patients are sent home earlier and the community support is asked to do more and more. Facilities looking after complex care residents are asked to do more too and I recently had an elderly relative in two so I know of what I speak. Residents that used to be admitted to acute care are not being looked after in the facility.
In other words, more and more is being expected of a bursting facility and the community. I feel it has reached the tipping pint. Penticton can no longer do more with less.
The demographics of Penticton and area further stretch our resources and this will not change. Please allow Interior Health and the planning committee of PRH to fulfill their future needs before a crumbling infrastructure collapses.
Gill Holland
Penticton