Campbell River Courier-Islander

The TELUS Tour for the Cure - an interactive touring exhibit promoting the value and importance of breast health and mammography, arrived at the Campbell River Common shopping centre Wednesday and will remain until Sunday.

The tour is visiting 24 communities and providing 42 aboriginal breast health sessions around B.C. until November. Every woman in B.C. 40 years of age and older is eligible for a free annual mammogram, however, less than half of eligible women get the exam.

Alberni Valley News

Microbiology lab services at West Coast General Hospital (WCGH) are being downsized, and two positions have been eliminated as partial service moves to Nanaimo.

Management says its streamlining services, but the president of the Hospital Sciences Association (HSA) says savings should be used to deliver local service.

The Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) said the move is a step toward a "hub-and-feeder" system service delivery, and takes effect May 1.

Vancouver Sun

Dear Editor:

Putting such a human face on the personal as well as institutional challenges in health care is not an easy task. Reporter Pamela Fayerman successfully raises important issues about how rehabilitation and the patients who need it can be better served in our system -- so much better than reports full of statistics could ever do.

The Province

Editor, The Province:

Columnist Brian Lewis misses the point in his effusive review of the new Abbotsford hospital.

I have no doubt that the facilities are impressive, the technology is top-notch and the equipment is shiny.

But without the highly trained and skilled health-science professionals needed to perform the vital diagnostic tests on that equipment all that shiny new technology is just expensive furniture.

The Fraser Health Authority estimates we will be short by more than 500 full-time diagnostic imaging staff by 2015.