I know they were talking about a name change for Powell River General Hospital but I didn't realize it would be this quick. I was surprised to see the headlines in the Peak July 29, 2022, that they had a ceremony on Monday July 25, 2022 [“Powell River General Hospital officially renamed as qathet General Hospital,” July 25].
I didn't see it advertised and when I looked at the photo I was wondering where are the MLA, the mayor or the chair of qathet Regional District? Were they not invited and did they just invite Indigenous people?
I recognize what the government, including Dr. Israel Powell, did to the Indigenous people was atrocious, but removing the name Powell from our area will not take away their grief or pain, nor will money or apologies. Your traditions and your healing practices and the way you handle grief will bring you peace.
This article also implied that the people of Tla'amin received different care than the rest of us and by changing the name it would make things better. The staff of Powell River General Hospital always treated everyone with respect and gave the same care. In the past couple of years, they have worked under extremely difficult situations and I think they deserve more respect.
Changing the name will not change our health-care system, in fact the money we will be using for a name change could have gone into improving patient care.
I think this name change and all the others are premature and should have waited until and if we change our city name from Powell River. What happens if we do change our name to qathet? Will the regional district change its name again? One of the reasons for that change was to not have the same name as the city, which was confusing.
I just hope the city does not do the same underhanded name change as Vancouver Coastal Health.
I was born in 1939 at St.Luke's hospital in Powell River. If you want to read an inspirational story about our first hospital, look up our first doctor, Dr. Henderson.
Lorna Clark
Ontario Avenue
Powell River
