Canada: BC Health minister Terry Lake won’t intervene in Dr. Alison Bested controversy at Vancouver

[Firestormm]

BC Health minister Terry Lake won’t intervene in Dr. Alison Bested controversy at Vancouver complex, chronic disease clinic

28 May 2014

The dispute between Bested and the Provincial Health Services Authority, revolves around the slow intake of patients and Bested’s insistence that best-care standards dictate that appointments must be lengthy (at least 90 minutes).

Such patients, after all, have longstanding and multiple health issues if they are struggling with such illnesses as Lyme disease, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and fibromyalgia. From the moment the clinic officially opened last fall, there was a huge wait list of patients because so many have unmet health care needs.

Since I reported on Bested’s departure, patients have demanded she be reinstated and that BC Health Minister Terry Lake intervene to make that happen.

In an interview, I asked him whether he’ll do so. His response will likely infuriate many:

"I don’t like to get involved in these kinds of HR (human resource) matters. I understand there were concerns about the huge numbers of patients waiting to be seen. Solutions were proposed but apparently the parties didn’t see eye to eye on that. I think we can, and will, do better.”

...

I have not been able to reach Bested but I understand she’s consulting lawyers.

I have received nearly 100 letters from readers, some of whom are patients, patient advocates and doctors. I’m sharing excerpts from some of these strongly worded letters:

Dr. John Whiting: “As a Canadian by birth and with a large contingency of Canadian family of my own, I wish to ‘weigh in’ on the current matter over the BC clinic. My training as an Infectious Diseases Specialist was at VGH, Shaughnessy Hospital and at UBC. I am a consultant in Brisbane Australia.

Currently, 100% of my time is devoted to ME/CFS clinical care. I TOO recognize how important it is to spend time (minimum 1 hour per visit) with my patients. I have been doing this for the last 25 years. The time spent is essential. Some of my patients have been seeing me for over 2 decades.

From my experience, Dr Bested has been doing precisely the right thing. It is the ONLY way to make a definite impact on these poor, sick people’s lives. It takes a lot of know how to control the situation and get the right balance to avoid being overloaded psychologically and mentally. There are problems too with unmet expectations from those who ‘oversee’ matters and who want to see ‘results’. Once this kind of scrutiny gets underway, the potential to spend more time justifying yourself to authorities can outweigh the work time available to see patients. I do not see Dr Bested’s approach to be ‘slow’ in any way, shape or form. This is the nature of the beast that is CFS/ME.

It is rare to find someone like Dr Bested, and it is similarly difficult to ‘replace’ her and her expertise and methodologies. CFS patients are like walking ICU patients. They are labour intensive, AND there are so many of these patients. The focus should be at the level of training medical students, training graduates, and training administrators. All need the insights required to address the real world of CFS effectively. This is no easy task, but it still needs to be said, should an earnest, well-meaning medical community truly wish to accommodate and manage the problem of CFS realistically and humanely.”

...

Read more: http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2014/...-at-vancouver-complex-chronic-disease-clinic/

Original story and thread: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...oneer-bc-womens-clinic-leaves-abruptly.30441/

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Politicians sell their souls to Satan so they can learn to open their mouths and fill the universe with "anti-sense"
Their crap repels normal sense, and thus sensible people, like the way the same magnetic poles push each other apart, and thus they fill the world with a void of useless pish!

Politicians, proof that the Elder Gods of Evil are real!

 

[Sasha]

Very interesting story - thanks for posting. Gives an idea of what a real ME clinic would be like as opposed to what we get palmed off with here in the UK and elsewhere.

 

[Valentijn]

It's not an "HR matter" ... it's a health care policy matter. The establishment's policy is "fast and cheap", and that doesn't work for complex chronic diseases. It needs to change, and the doctor was doing what was necessary to do her job properly, rather than engage in neglect as her employers demand.

 

[Undisclosed]

Politicians sell their souls to Satan so they can learn to open their mouths and fill the universe with "anti-sense"
Their crap repels normal sense, and thus sensible people, like the way the same magnetic poles push each other apart, and thus they fill the world with a void of useless pish!

Politicians, proof that the Elder Gods of Evil are real!

Now I am concerned. My mum used to be a politician. There were no outward signs of that she had sold her soul to the devil. I wonder if he gave it back to her after she quit politics.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Now I am concerned. My mum used to be a politician. There were no outward signs of that she had sold her soul to the devil. I wonder if he gave it back to her after she quit politics.

Well, she quit politics so obviously she was one of the few who refused the Faustian Pact!

 

[Kati]

It's not an "HR matter" ... it's a health care policy matter. The establishment's policy is "fast and cheap", and that doesn't work for complex chronic diseases. It needs to change, and the doctor was doing what was necessary to do her job properly, rather than engage in neglect as her employers demand.

i agree it's a health policy and it's a funding policy as well. The province decided they would give the clinic peanuts, like 1 millions a year. They said there would not be testing and there would be strong emphasis on self-management.

That is a huge problem because patients are very sick and have been proacticing self management for decades now and eating the nightshade vegetables (yep that's what she preaches) and meditating is not gonna chage a whole lot of anything.