Thinking of Retiring in Kelowna?

Citizens for Responsible Community Planning (CRCP) has prepared this page to give potential new residents a more balanced perspective about life in Kelowna. Most of us love it here. Kelowna has a great climate by Canadian standards with an early spring, a hot and dry summer, and a golden autumn. Winters area relatively mild but tend to be a bit too overcast and that is when many head to sunnier locations like Arizona. Kelowna is situated on Okanagan Lake and is nestled between the mountains making for a spectacular natural setting. At a population of about 110,000 the city has a good variety of retail services most notable being the regional Orchard Park Mall. We also have good medical services such as a regional hospital which can treat most conditions although some more specialized surgeries and other procedures are still done in Vancouver. There are also a good variety of entertainment and cultural events happening here the latter being focused at the Rotary Centre for the Arts. For a city of its size, Kelowna has a lot to offer.

But CRCP would also like to tell you some things about Kelowna that the Chamber of Commerce won’t. As Kelowna has rapidly expanded in the past few years an increasing number of problems have appeared along with this growth. Most notable among these problems is the present crisis at the Kelowna General Hospital. Since December 2005 KGH has experience numerous “code purples.” A “code purple” is called when there is a shortage of beds and staff are asked to make available more beds by discharging as many patients as possible in order to free up more acute-care beds for incoming emergency cases. The experience at the KGH recently has been that significantly more patients have been admitted than for which there are beds and that these patients end up spending days on gurneys in the hallways. In the meanwhile doctors, nurses and other hospital staff have been overworked, a situation that is not healthy for them nor the patients. To alleviate the present crisis situation, it has been reported that an additional 142 residential care beds will be made available in 2007 and another 140 long-term care beds will be built by the spring of 2008. Twenty-two new assisted living beds will be provided at the same time. However, doctors at the hospital say that what is needed now are 40 more beds and two additional operating rooms. At the moment it is not known if these resources can be made available before 2007 or if the additional beds planned for that year and 2008 will be adequate with the city’s rapid rate of growth to handle the increased population by that time and for how long.

Kelowna - A dangerous place to be ill

In a front page story on Wed., July 26,2006 the Kelowna Daily Courier reported that the Kelowna General Hospital will be cutting back on elective surgeries in order to free up operating rooms and beds for emergency cases. This will result in longer waiting times for patients for such elective procedures such as hip or knee replacements for which there are already pretty long wait times as is.

In an open letter to the editor of the Okanagan on Sat., July 29, 2006 Svenn Mikkelson of Oyama, a recent patient at the KGH, writes some opinions that he had sent to the mayors of many Okanagan cities. Mr. Mikkelsen writes "I know I am not telling you anything you do not already know. I repeat this because it is you and your respective councils who continue to approve mega-developments in your communities. You require exhaustive reports regarding provision of water, sewage treatment, control of run-off and all other services.... Yet, nowhere in your approval process do you ever consider who will care for the health needs of these new arrivals. ... Many of these developments are designed to cater to seniors, with their concomitantly increased health needs. What about them? You have a moral and fiduciary responsibility to your exisiting constituents to ensure that their interests are protected before putting any more strain on an already overtaxed system.... At the moment, the Okanagan is a fabulous place to live , but a dangerous place to be ill."

As I have written elsewhere the present crisis at the Kelowna General Hospital has been caused by demand pressures i.e., too many people straining limited resources. This crisis has developed to its present alarming level because of the negligence of our city planners and politicians in both allowing too much growth and totally ignoring the issue of health services when planning for that growth.

The Changing face of Kelowna

Here are some recent observations from Kelowna Capital News columnist Judie Steeves (April 6, 2007) on the changing face of Kelowna:

"It's saddening to see cranes replacing tall trees on Kelowna's skyline. I moved back to the Okanagan when my kids were little because I remembered it as a great place to grow up in. It wasn't one big city. It was rural in nature and you didn't have to drive for hours to get to a natural place. That's all changing and I don't like this place it's becoming nearly so much. Although I've always enjoyed going away for a weekend or a week in the bush anyway, now it's nice to get away from what Kelowna's become, with traffic jams and construction dust, concrete and noise. Day by day, it seems we're losing green spaces and natural areas, peace and even fresh air."

Kelowna Daily Courier, June 21, 2007 -- "Forecast calls for crime, violence"

"Kelowna residents can expect to see an increase in organized crime now that the Hells Angels have set up a chapter here, said RCMP Sgt. Al Haslett. And Julian Sher, author of two books about the HA, said the people of Kelowna have real reason to fear more drugs and violence. "It's going to mean more organized crime here, yes it is. I'm confident of that," said Haslett. "It means that this chapter does not have to answer to anybody in Vancouver. They will set their own boundaries. They will start having a higher presence in Kelowna. They can now start showing their colours in Penticton, Vernon, Kamloops. they are going to want to set out and expand their boundaries."

Sher, whose books on the Hells Angels, Road to Hell and more recently Angels of Death, said the development is scary news for Kelowna. "You can be certain they will play a key role in bringing drugs into the city and in enforcement and extortion," Sher said from Montreal, Wednesday. "We have seen explosions of violence with the Hells Angels. We've seen drive-by shootings, murders and unexplained disappearances. The people in Kelowna have to be worried."

Traffic congestion "fast approaching a crisis"

In an editorial on July 31, 2007 the Kelowna Daily Courier writes "Kelowna is going through a growth phase, as we all know. The volume of traffic is already so heavy that even when there are no accidents, the main arteries are clogged like so much cholesterol in a cheese-only man's diet. Then, the feeder streets are backed up for blocks and blocks -- cars, trucks and buses idling for interminable lengths of time as a gazillion vehicles try to get across the bridge, or even just across Highway 97. ... Every city has traffic jams, we know that. But the number and duration of those now happening almost daily in Kelowna is fast approaching a crisis."