Forty-plus emergency room closures in his community wasn’t enough to affect major change: Merritt Mayor reacts to Brown resignation

The resignation of Susan Brown was not an official agenda item at Friday’s Thompson Regional Hospital District (TRHD) meeting, but it certainly featured in conversations between directors. The hospital district that works directly with interior health for funding on major projects throughout the region.

The Emergency Department at the Nicola Valley Hospital in Merritt has been closed 11 times so far this year, that follows more than 20 closures last year. That led to mayor Mike Goetz calling for Brown’s resignation more than a year ago.

“We did meet with Josie Osborne about three months ago, once of the questions we had was looking into all the HAs (health authorities) and how they are run and how they are managed, and especially IHA (Interior Health Authority),” said Goetz. “To go through it, have a look, see if we were in the ballpark, and if not make a change.”

Goetz believes his hospital’s constant closures were simply not big enough to affect change.

“No this doesn’t surprise me because we saw when Surrey had an issue, and the doctors penned a letter, the very next day the minister was out and a new wing was announced,” said Goetz. “We saw it when Delta went down, when Delta went down councilors got excited, the minister of the day went out to Delta to make sure it didn’t happen again. So when one of the motherships starts to go down, I predicted this long ago, that we wouldn’t get traction on any of this until we started seeing the centers of excellence go down, which under this program are not allowed to go down.”

While Interior Health looks after a massive area, there has seemingly always been an invisible line dividing Kamloops from Kelowna.

“I think it really started back under mayor (Peter) Milobar’s tenure at the time when IH moved their administrative offices from Kamloops all to Kelowna,” said TRHD Chair Mike O’Reilly. “And really that is where things started, and that is where the division started and it has been building up since then.

Goetz is unsure how much real change will occur with brown still working behind the scenes on the transition to a new CEO.

“If Ms. Brown, who has done a good job to a certain degree, continues to run it from the background no we will see no change at all,” stated Goetz. “When the door is closed completely and there is not influence from Susan Brown I don’t see any change at all. We need to make a clean break here, we need to get somebody in that position and until that happens, no I don’t see any change at all because if you are still running it from the sidelines, you are still running it from the sidelines.”

Interior Health has not specified exactly how the search for a new CEO will be conducted.