The City of Nelson has joined the Village of Kaslo in a harmonized call for kidney dialysis services to be available at the Kootenay Lake Hospital.
Nelson city council will be signing and submitting a letter of support to the West Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital District board and Interior Health to advocate for the services in Nelson, a few weeks after Kaslo endorsed a similar letter.
Right now, patients are required to travel to Trail, Creston or Grand Forks to access the treatment on their own time and dime, seeing as there is no longer a dedicated bus to help patients get to and from their appointments.
Interior Health has said it’s unlikely Nelson will see these services in the near future, but it’s exploring other options to offer outreach services supporting pre-dialysis patients in the Nelson area.
Despite IH’S claim that it isn’t in the position to offer the services in Nelson, Mayor Janice Morrison says her government still decided to support the letter to serve as a reminder to the health authority that the community needs a local solution.
“We’ve been talking about this for many years actually, in terms of trying to get dialysis service here in Nelson. So this letter is a way of supporting our community advocates and also to remind Interior Health and the Ministry that Nelson believes this is a service that we should have at our hospital.”
Morrison says most local leaders in the region would agree that having the additional dialysis service option at the Kootenay Lake Hospital would be beneficial, but it’s up to Interior Health to make it a priority and encourages community members to continue to advocate to the province.
“There’s a very strong community group here that are really pushing for these services to be available, and I think that oftentimes it is the community voice and the leadership from the community that moves these issues forward.”