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Ferry strike averted

IT’LL BE smooth sailing in calm fabor relations waters for the B.C. Ferry Corp. after the Crown
corporation and the Ferry and Marine Workers’ Union reached a tentative contract settlement
Monday afternoon. The deal came just before a meeting scheduled by the union to discuss
the possibility of a strike. Details of the contract were not availiable to press time Tuesday.

For other 8.C. ferry news, see page 3.

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EK’S TV LISTINGS: 36

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Dr. Norman Hamilton ... centre LGH president Robert Smith ...

would reduce deaths.

more ‘‘recognition’’ needed.

Victoria wants LGH
to be one of six centres

A REPORT commissioned
by the B.C. government has
recommended that the
North Shore’s Lions Gate
Hospital be upgraded and
expanded to become one of
six main medical trzuma
centres in the province.

By Surj Rattan
News Reporter

The recommendation is one of
48 made in the recently-released
Trauma Care Report for B.C.

And Dr. Norman Hamilton,
who practises at LGH and is the
chairman of the report’s steering
committee, said more lives could
be saved if B.C. had a new
trauma system.

The report also recommended
that other regional trauma centres
be located in Prince George,
Kamloops, Ketowna, Victoria and
New Westminster.

If the provincial ministry of
health, which commissioned the
report, approves the steering
commitice’s recommendation to
turn LGH into a trauma centre, 2
number of additions would have
to be made to LGH, including
building a helicopter landing pad
at the hospital.

Hamilton said the report will
act as a blueprint on how to im-
prove the province's current
trauma system,

“We don’t have designated
trauma centres in B.C, We need
that at hospitals,’’ said Hamilton.
“ff we can get trauma patients to
these hospitals, it) will greatly
reduce the number of deaths.”

LGH president Robert Smith
said he was pleased that the hos-
pital had been recommended as a
regional traunva centre, and added
that LGH has been acting as a
partial trauma centre for several
years.

NO

“We've already been trying to
operate that way.’’ he said.
“We've been trying to provide
that service and more recognition
(from the health ministry) will be
needed if we are to truly operate
as a trauma centre.””

But he added that he doubts the
health ministry currently has the
funds needed to create regional
trauma centres.

Health Minister John Jansen
said that while some of the rec-
ommendations made in the report
have already been adopted by Vic-
toria, others have ‘‘significant cost
factors’’ and would be im-
plemented ‘‘over the longer
term.”’

Smith said the trauma report's
recommendations will be  pres-
ented to LGH_ staff for their
feedback.

In its report to the health
ministry, Hamilton’s group said
that injuries, primarily from car
accidents, result in more than
9,000 deaths in Canada each year,
and that trauma is the leading
cause of death for people between
the ages of one and 44.

‘Jurisdictions which have es-
tablished comprehensive trauma
systems have shown a dramatic
reduction in preventable deaths,
improved care of injured patients
and a reduction in patients requir-
ing chronic institutional care,"
Harnilton stated in the report’s
executive summary.

Under the recommendations of
the report, @ new trauma system
would be developed in B.C. in
which rural trauma centres would
be linked with regional trauma
centres, such us LGH, where more
advanced medical skills and
technologies are located.

It also recommends that Van-
couver General Hospital be desig-
nated as a provincial trauma cen-
tre for adults, while the B.C.
Children’s Hospital be designated
a provincial Gauma_ centre for
children under the age of 14.

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