A few weeks ago, a 17 year old Indigenous boy named Vincent died at the Kitimat Hospital while he was said to be waiting for a CT scan that could’ve shown that he had a congenital hernia.
Skeena MLA Claire Rattée has since taken action to get to the bottom of how something like this could’ve happened while also pointing out why she believes Kitimat’s CT Scanner still isn’t operational;
“First thing I did was reach out to the minister’s chief of staff and I informed her of what happened, and I told her I expected a quick response. It does not make sense to me why the CT Scanner is still not running. The community fundraised for it back in 2023 and I know what’s going on here. They don’t have the staff and they don’t have the money to operate it. This ministry is probably frustrated that the community fundraised for a piece of equipment that they have no way to staff because they’ve made such a mess of our province’s budget and our healthcare system.”
Rattée said that she still hadn’t gotten a response from the Health Minister on her questions related to this death, which led to her bringing it up in the recent question period.
She next mentioned that an incident like this one is not a one off event in Northern BC’s Healthcare system;
“This is just one example that is recent and incredibly egregious, but this is not by any means an isolated incident. There are people that have been dismissed and ended up having severe blood clots in their lungs that went undiagnosed. There was a woman recently that has cerebral palsy, she was going in for weeks complaining of problems with her hip and they weren’t able to diagnose until she finally got a CT Scan done in Terrace. It turns out she had been trying to get around with cerebral palsy and a fractured hip for seven weeks. It’s insanity, it’s like we live in a third world country.”
Rattée has also called for an independent review into Vincent’s death and she said that she would be sending an official letter to the Minister about that request too.
BC Health Minister Josie Osborne provided a statement expressing her condolences to Vincent’s family while also urging any family in a similar situation with concerns to contact the Patient Care Quality Office in order to make sure matters of that nature are looked into.
And according to Northern Health, after significant planning, preparation and renovation work, they expect CT services in Kitimat to become available by the spring of 2026.