ROTHENBURGER – The mayor’s very personal first-hand look at Royal Inland

CHANCES ARE Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson won’t be at today’s Kamloops City council meeting. He’s been spending most of each day at Royal Inland Hospital with his ailing wife Lori.

Her illness began a couple of weeks ago with flu-like symptoms but soon developed into a life-threatening case of pneumonia. For a while, says the mayor, it was touch and go and although she’s out of ICU she remains under close watch at RIH. Throughout the ordeal, he’s been with her except to go out to eat or attend to City business, or take calls on his phone in a small space outside her room.

It’s the latest in a string of trying circumstances for the controversial mayor, who is deeply in debt due to wage sanctions imposed by council, issues with business loans, plus legal fees, as well as being constantly at odds with the council over procedural matters, and labeled as the “Mayor of Chaos” in local media.

He blames stress caused to Lori by the situation between him and council and City administrators, and media coverage, as a contributor to her illness. It’s believed chronic stress increases the risk of developing pneumonia because it can weaken the immune system.

“I believe it’s part of the reason why she’s here.”

So many challenges might break many men but Hamer-Jackson refuses to bend. And now, his experience at the hospital during these past many days has made him determined to bring to light what he sees as failures in the healthcare system.

“The system’s broken,” he says. But he hastens to add, “The staff is awesome.”

Hamer-Jackson emphasizes the caring professionalism of hospital staff but condemns the conditions they must work under, citing what he sees as inadequate facilities in the older part of the hospital, the necessity of nurses having to park blocks away, and a shortage of nurses. (He believes there’s a ratio of five nurses to 40 patients.)

“I’d like to invite David Eby up here and spend a week,” he said Monday.

He isn’t the first mayor to complain about the hospital, and acknowledges healthcare is outside the jurisdiction of municipal government but he’s going to talk about it anyway. “Don’t tell me to stay in my own lane — I gotta step up.”

He seems a little uncertain about how to go about it other than trying to get some of the local media interested. Letters upon letters to the provincial government on such issues have no effect, he says. What he will do is talk about it at council and try to convince Eby and his ministers to take a close look at conditions in RIH.

Meanwhile, he has signaled his intention to carry through with a defamation lawsuit against developer Joshua Knaak over comments about an alleged incident at a local bar. And he says he still fully intends to pursue re-election in this October’s vote.

He says he and Lori have talked about it. “I love this community. We’ve gotta get our community back.”

But right now, he’s dividing his time between being at her side, and carrying on as mayor.

“She’s not out of the woods yet.”

Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, writes for the Kamloops Chronicle and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and was a Webster Foundation Commentator of the Year finalist. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor.  He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.