The West Kootenay-Boundary Regional Hospital District Board has raised the long-standing issue of the need for a second access to Kootenay-Boundary Regional Hospital in Trail.
Andy Davidoff made the unanimously passed motion noting the 2018 wildfire between J-L Crowe Secondary School and the hospital which saw flames creep to within 100 metres of the facility.
“The hospital is vulnerable and of course our patients and staff are vulnerable to wildfire and a secondary access to the hospital could address that,” he stated.
Trail mayor Colleen Jones agrees with having Interior Health do a risk assessment and explore the liability implications of having only one route into the regional hospital.
“It has been brought up at the Council table several times, there are a lot of concerned citizen out there,” said the mayor, who pointed out evacuation isn’t the only concern.
“Huge safety issues whether the ambulances, fire trucks etc. could get up there,” she added.
Davidoff said he launched the motion after the hearing from the three local MLA’s at the board meeting.
“They weren’t aware of motions or anything from the past, even though there were discussions and I thought it was timely to make a motion for an immediate assessment by I-H-A,” he explained.
Davidoff insists it’s a matter than should not be thrown back on the back-burner.
“To potentially have all of our patients and all of our staff not being able to evacuate safely if there is a wildfire, I think that’s an emergent issue that needs to be addressed,” he stated, feeling the board has a basic responsibility.
“We’re a hospital board, patient and staff safety has to be job one.”
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