The Tribune from Williams Lake, British Columbia, Canada • 1

ayor demands health review TODAY Hockey product Simon Zurak finishes junior hockey season in Alberta A7 Bankers Variety Show raises money for 139 Children's Fund-raising B1 BY SAGE B1RCHWATER Tribune Staff Writer Party lines are blurry for Mayor Scott Nelson when it comes to seniors care in Williams Lake. Nelson, known to sit right of centre on the political teeter-totter, made no bones about it at Tuesday's March 7 city council meeting, when he introduced a motion to ask Health Minister George Abbott to expand Interior Health's investigation of seniors' care to include Williams Lake. public forum on seniors care held in Williams Lake last Saturday, was a representative from Interior Health. "The MLAs were there, city council was there, the Leader of Opposition was there, the seniors advisory group was there, Retirement Concepts was there, but Interior Health didn't show up at the round table meeting." Nelson said council wants the health minister do an independent review of the Families and Seniors Transition Strategy, and the im "One thing is evident over the last 18 months, the seniors in Williams Lake have been right, and Interior Health has been wrong," Nelson stated. "We've got to politically back our seniors." He says the seniors were correct about the transition strategy, and the health authority miscalculated the number of beds that would be needed in Williams Lake when it closed down Deni House, Cariboo Lodge and Heritage House.

Nelson said he is furious because the only party missing from a pacts on seniors health care in Williams Lake. "We don't want Interior Health to do it, because they cover their butts too much." Coun. Tom Barr, who sits on the board of Sunset Manor, a 50-unit seniors housing complex on the west side of Williams Lake, said at least six of the 50 residents at the manor need to be in a different class of building because they can no longer look after themselves. "The average age of those 50 people is 85 years old," he said. "There's nowhere for those people to go once they can't look after themselves.

It's just getting worse and worse." Barr commended Nelson for bringing the issue forward. "I'm delighted to see your initiative," he told the mayor. Coun. Ed Mead, a former financial administrator for Cariboo Memorial Hospital, also agrees the transition wasn't done properly. "Our seniors deserve the best.

Interior Health misread the community and cut far too deep." WILLIAMS LAKE I THE lJ A K. WvaSM Jvvg mmmtm I 1 tJ'Wn'' ill: I LJ i till ill lit Ml bcclassified.com www.wltribune.com VOL. 76 NO. 20 THURSDAY MARCH 09, 2006 Single Copy $1.00 G.S. T.

'j I Jl'J pF Plan in the works I i 1 I .1 -tit i I BRIEFS Tea celebrates city's birthday The Museum of the Cariboo Chilcotin will help the City of Williams Lake celebrate its 77th birthday on Wednesday, March 15 with their annual birthday tea. The open house tea takes place between I and 3:30 p.m. The birthday cake will be cut by the mayor about 1:30 p.m. says museum manager Pat Sklob-lanuik. Ken Schwartz will also have the model train running downstairs which is always a crowd pleaser.

Don't worry about the renovations going on outside, the museum is open, says Sklob-lanuik. Regular hours for the museum are Tuesday through Saturday from II a.m. to 4 p.m. Pioneer Log Homes Sometime between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m.

on Tuesday, March 7, Pioneer Log Homes was broken into. Two pickup trucks were stolen from the locked compound and various vehicles were entered and rummaged through. The suspects rammed the front gate on Hodgson Road to exit the compound. I I i' Ti d. jiiiiiiimimii Amazing science Grade 5 Cataline Elementary student Morgan Black (left) is stunned in a vacuum.

First the marshmallows expanded, and then when the by a physics experiment conducted by Science World's Kate Hen- vacuum was released the marshmallows shrunk. Science World on derson. Henderson demonstrated what happens to marshmallows the road did shows at several schools. Karen Longwell photo Health discussion lively BY ALAIN SAFFEL Black Press The Cariboo Regional District is in the midst of developing an emergency response program, as required under provincial legislation. The CRD board gave approval in February for manager of community services Darron Campbell, to develop a structure for the emergency social services component of the overall program with local municipalities.

Emergency social services involve the assistance of volunteers in evacuating an area. While municipalities have been required for quite some time to have an emergency services program in place, Campbell said regional districts have only been required to do so since 2004. They had been given until the end of 2005 to develop that plan. "It's a huge undertaking and we're still managing it piece by piece. We have established an emergency planning service.

"The plan will help us to decide what scope of an emergency program is realistic for the district." The key components of the program are an emergency operations centre, evacuation planning, staff training, exercises and emergency social services. "It made sense for the regional district to try and build on what the municipalities have already had in place for 10 years." The main disasters the CRD is planning for include interface wildfires, flooding, severe weather events and transportation disasters such as major truck or rail accidents. The plan will have contingencies for other types of disasters too. "We're developing the tools to respond to anything." The regional district is also developing plans for dealing with potential flu pandemics. Volunteers won't be directly involved in dealing with wildfires, spills or other disasters that are the responsibility of other government departments.

They'll be involved in helping to evacuate people, mapping, local site knowledge and co-ordinating resources. "What we're looking for from the public is people interested in becoming part of the emergency social services volunteer program. That's going to be our largest public component' Campbell said another aspect of the program is to be able to accept evacuees from other areas. Responding to some of the concerns brought forward, he says the issue of more transitional beds is being addressed with the re-opening of Deni House, but he says no time frame has been identified. To minimize the number of staff needed to re-open Deni House, Martin said the health authority is hoping to move the 11 patients from Heritage House to Deni House to have all the transitional beds under one roof.

But he said it is necessary to talk to the patients and their families first. "The need for further dialogue may delay the opening of Deni House," Martin admitted. On the question of cloth diapers still being used by Williams Lake Seniors Village, Martin said that's a matter between the families and the care provider. "It's an issue to bring up at the family and resident council meetings." Martin said establishing resident councils was a recommendation of the Peterson Report that was acted on immediately Williams Lake Seniors Village. Thirty of the 46 recommendations have been met.

Retirement Concepts' Julia Glover was unavailable at press time. See Tuesday's Tribune for follow up story. call to designate Cariboo Memorial Hospital as a regional hospital. "They need to look at more than the population base," MacLise argues. "Our hospital deserves that status because of the large geographic area it serves." Fifth on the agenda was the call to extend the rural transportation system for Cariboo Chilcotin residents.

MacLise said there is a need for a rural bus to transport people from Williams Lake to medical services in Kamloops and Kelowna. "We understand other areas have that service. The Northern Health Authority is doing it on an experimen tal basis. A man from Nelson said they had the service down there." MacLise said she wasn't surprised that Interior Health Authority failed to show up at the meeting. "There's other meetings they haven't attended." Al Martin, chief operating officer for the Thompson Cariboo Shuswap region says Interior Health received too short a notice to attend the meeting.

He says he got the letter five days before the event, adding that the lack of agenda for the meeting made it difficult to prepare for or to know the most appropriate person or persons to send. FORECAST Former Trib owner dies BY SAGE BIRCHWATER Tribune Staff Writer Seniors Advisory Council chair Audrey MacLise says the round table meeting on seniors health, organized on March 4, by Cariboo MLAs Charlie Wyse and Bob Simpson, was a "lively discussion." "There was good participation," MacLise said. Besides the MLAs from Cariboo North and South, and Official Opposition Leader Carole James, there were representatives from city council, local seniors groups, and Williams Lake Seniors Village. Noticeable by their absence, Interior Health Authority officials did not attend the forum. Topping the agenda was the shortage of residential care beds and lack of choice for seniors care," MacLise said.

"People felt there are too many seniors forced to stay in the hospital." Next in importance, she said, was the standard of care being provided by the private facility (Williams Lake Seniors Village). At issue were staffing levels and continued use of cloth napkins for patients. She said the third issue was the government's inability to complete a satisfactory revision of the Community Care and Assisted Living Act, otherwise known as Bill 73. "They keep extending the deadline for it. The government seems unable to come up with any legislation with teeth in it," says MacLise.

The fourth point was the to the and they moved Maritimes. The sun should come out today. The forcast is for sunny skies and highs reaching 3 degrees Celsius. Lows are expected to hit -7 degrees Celsius. On Friday there is a 60 per cent chance of rain or snow.

For complete weather, turn to Page A2. He remained an advisor to David and cheerleader for Black Press right up until he died in his sleep last week. He loved Adelaide, loved life and loved boating. He built a 36-foot cabin cruiser and explored the B.C. coast in her.

He and Adelaide also enjoyed traveling on cruise ships around the world. Friends and family are invited to celebrate Alan Black's marvelous life on Tuesday, March 14 from 1:30 4:00 p.m. at the Richmond Country Club, 9100 Steveston Highway (first drivew ay west of the Buddhist Temple). In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to a charity of your choice. The newspaper industry has lost another pioneer.

Alan Davison Black, former owner of the Williams Lake Tribune, died Thursday, March 3. He was 92 years old. He is survived by Adelaide, his wife of 65 years, children Joan, David and Brenda and grandchildren Alan, Fraser, Morgan, Catherine, Kimberly, Emma, Miguel and Richard. Born in Fort William, Ontario, now Thunder Bay, on October 9, 1913, Black was the youngest of three brothers. The family moved to Kelowna when their father died.

He attended UBC, worked at The Bay and married Adelaide, a Vancouver girl, in 1940. He joined the Navy After the war he joined Cockfield Brown Advertising in Vancouver. He was transferred to Toronto in 1956 but left the agency business to run his own manufacturing company. A few years later, the family moved back to Vancouver where he managed Northwest Publications, a company that owned newspapers in B.C.'s interior. When the company dissolved in 1969, Black bought a majority share in its smallest paper, the Williams Lake Tribune, along with Clive Stangoe.

Black sold the paper to son David in 1975. Alan Black left retirement to join MacMillan Bloedel, CP Alan Black selling newsprint from coast to coast. He left retirement a second time to help Leo Burnett establish a west coast advertising agency office. Full circle. v4.