The people of this community opened their wallets and gave generously of $1.5 million to fill a major need at Shuswap Lake General Hospital, that of a CT scan.
And the machine is here and operational. Except it is not operating even close to its capacity. And waitlists for Shuswap patients to get a scheduled non-emergency scan are running upwards of six months.
Emergency CT scans are being carried out as needed (during business hours) however, Interior Health is only funding seven scheduled CT procedures per day. Other hospitals, such as Vernon Jubilee, are authorized to do triple that number.
So Shuswap-area residents are still being forced to travel to Kamloops, Vernon or Kelowna for their procedures – procedures that could be done here if only IH would agree to fund them.
It would be great if Interior Health could explain why Salmon Arm’s CT scanner should not be used for the same number of procedures as the ones in other communities. It isn’t a matter of having trained staff or that the machine isn’t capable. Budget constraints was the reason cited to us, however, this doesn’t account for the lack of parity between this area and others nearby.
It doesn’t make sense that Vernon, which also has one CT machine, can do that many more scans than Salmon Arm. The waitlist pressures here are just as great as for our neighbours to the south.
Interior Health says it is working to rectify the situation.
As well they should, and without further delay.