November 4 , 2002

Delta South 101

There are some political lessons to be learned by examining the fight over the Delta hospital. On Friday, November 1st, the Fraser Valley Health Authority announced that the emergency room at the Delta hospital will continue with 24/7 physician and nurse coverage.

According to the "Save Delta Hospital" website, the original plan for cuts to the hospital included closing the emergency room from midnight to 8 AM, elimination of inpatient surgery, elimination of cardiac care and intensive care beds, elimination of 20 medical and surgical beds, and a significant reduction in diagnostic services and food services. An important part of Friday's news release included a statement about co-ordination of services between Richmond and Delta hospitals ("only" 20 minutes apart when the tunnel is not blocked). Richmond hospital is the responsibility of the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. Its Chief Operating Officer is quoted in the release saying:  "Richmond residents could benefit from increased access to outpatient surgical daycare and endoscopy services provided at Delta, while Delta residents could benefit from access to Richmond's inpatient surgical services and other acute care programs."

A brief note on the Save Delta Hospital website responded to the announcement by describing it as "…the first step in the right direction, but our fight is not yet over. There are a number of critical pieces still missing. (ICU beds for example)". The website also encourages readers to see Dr. Martin Ray's guest editorial in the October 25th South Delta Leader where he argued that "Keeping the Delta Hospital emergency room open with only a shell of a hospital behind it will be a worst-case scenario."

On November 1st Global TV's evening news included an analysis by legislative reporter Keith Baldry; he credited the emergency room victory to the threat of recalling Delta South MLA Val Roddick. According to Baldry, the Campbell Liberals have a poll showing that when recall is focused on a single issue like the Delta Hospital it can be successful. In 2001 Roddick won with 67% of the vote. Her nearest competitor, the Green candidate, had less than 17% and the NDP had less than 10%. In 1996 the late Fred Gingell won Delta South with just under 59% of the vote. In 1991 it was a different story. That was when Social Credit went down to defeat under Rita Johnston. In that election in Delta South, Social Credit took 30.44%, NDP took 29.74% and Gingell took 39.82% for the BC Liberals then led by Gordon Wilson.

Gingell's widow is active in the Save Delta Hospital campaign. Some pundits point out that if a recall campaign were successful in South Delta, Roddick could lose her nomination and the new BC Liberal (anti-Campbell) candidate could win the by-election. A lot of things "could" happen but what has happened is the backing down on partial closure of the Delta Hospital emergency room. Whether keeping an emergency room while gutting the hospital is enough to defuse the opposition and prevent a successful recall campaign remains to be seen.

At this stage the first lesson from the Delta Hospital campaign is that the Campbell Liberals can be made to make at least some change in course when sufficient pressure is brought to bear. A good deal of that pressure has to come from within the ranks of those that voted Liberal so the Campbell government cannot dismiss the pressure as coming from labour or from those who might want to re-fight the election.

What do the initial lessons from Delta mean for other communities? Passenger rail service has ended, Kimberly is paying for health services with municipal taxes, court houses have closed, and regional and district forestry offices have closed. In short, communities are hurting because the local MLA feels safe in representing government to the constituency rather than representing the constituency to government. The people who attended the Liberal convention, the people who sit on Liberal constituency executives and most Liberal MLAs feel safe. There might not be a single issue to unite other communities. It might take dozens of issues and two and a half more years until other communities can fight back in 2005.

Activists should look at the buttons, the bumper stickers, the meetings, the rallies, the lawn signs, the campaign office and the dozens of other tactics used by people in Delta South to mount a campaign that has been noticed. People in Delta did more than write a letter to the editor; they launched a full blown campaign.