In October this year, a 17-year-old boy died in Kitimat while he was waiting hours for a CT scan.<\/p>\n
The district\u2019s BC Conservative MLA, Claire Ratt\u00e9e, is now criticizing the provincial government for his death and is demanding answers from Health Minister Josie Osborne.<\/p>\n
She says the boy, Vincent, waited five hours in excruciating pain before an appointment could be arranged for him.<\/p>\n
While waiting, Vincent was losing colour and experiencing difficulties breathing.<\/p>\n
According to Ratt\u00e9e, Vincet died just shortly before he was supposed to be transported to the hospital in Terrace, receiving the scan there.<\/p>\n
\u201cA CT was finally arranged in Terrace, but no ambulance was available. He had to wait for one from Terrace,\u201d explained Ratt\u00e9e.<\/p>\n
She and the BC Conservatives called the tragic event \u201cunacceptable\u201d and \u201centirely preventable.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThis should never happen in British Columbia.\u201d<\/p>\n
She especially criticizes the lack of equipment in the hospital in Kitimat, which means that residents have to drive at least 45 minutes to Terrace.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not reasonable for a community of over 8.000 residents to have to go 45 minutes to be able to access emergency services and a hospital,\u201d Ratt\u00e9e told 1130 NewsRadio.<\/p>\n
CT scanner ready by spring 2026<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did not have a CT scanner in our hospital. And so back in 2023, the community actually fundraised enough money on their own to purchase a CT scanner.\u201d<\/p>\n
The CT scanner, however, is not yet available in the hospital due to construction, according to B.C.\u2019s Ministry of Health.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe equipment that could have helped this boy was sitting behind a construction barrier,\u201d Ratt\u00e9e said.<\/p>\n
Minister Osborne says she expects the scanner to be up and running in spring 2026.<\/p>\n
Ratt\u00e9e criticizes the government for not speeding up the process of installing the scanner, which it did not even pay for.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor whatever reason, this government dragged its feet and did not actually start on the construction phase of putting the CT scanner in until August,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s really frustrating about that is that there were ministers who came up and basically did this whole look at us, look at the CT scanner, almost trying to take credit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Community feels left behind by government<\/p>\n
She adds that community members told her that they do not feel like being treated as a priority by the government.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not have the same quality of health care in our region, and that\u2019s not for a lack of great people working within health care and really trying to make a difference, but [it is because] we do not have access to the diagnostic tools.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ratt\u00e9e explains that Vincent died from a congenital hernia, which had been dismissed as constipation earlier.<\/p>\n
She says she advocated for the boy and informed the Minister of Health\u2019s office about the case, but did not receive a response.<\/p>\n
Ratt\u00e9e calls for an independent review into Vincent\u2019s death and a release of the findings publicly.<\/p>\n
Additionally, she says the Kitimat CT scanner should be activated immediately for emergency use now.<\/p>\n
During Question Period on Tuesday, Minister Osborne said that she could not talk about individual cases.<\/p>\n
With files from Srushti Gangdev.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In October this year, a 17-year-old boy died in Kitimat while he was waiting hours for a CT…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-295422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}