I'm awfully sorry. Here it is:
Millennium bug plagues B.C. hospitals
Health agencies in B.C. lag far behind other jurisdictions in
funds and planning.
Dianne Rinehart Vancouver Sun
Hundreds of millions of dollars needed to de-bug life-saving hospital equipment
before the so-called "Year 2000 Millennium Bug" kicks in will have to come
from already over-stretched health care budgets, the province says.
"It's going to have to come from somewhere," said Jeff Gaulin, the spokesman
on the issue within the health ministry, who was adamant there wasn't extra
money for it.
Meanwhile, the province's health care facilities and regional health boards
have yet to determine what equipment needs debugging or replacing, how
much it will cost, or how they will fix it in time -- before Jan. 1, 2000 --
although experts have warned the task is so enormous and expensive that if
governments, companies and service providers haven't already started, it may
already be too late.
The problem: Most computer systems and microprocessors used in
electronic equipment, such as some life-support systems, use two digits, not
four, to denote years. This means when the year 2000 arrives, it will show up
as "00" and the computer or microprocessor could think it's 1900.
Equipment could then fail to perform timely functions -- such as opening
valves every few seconds, or delivering drugs, or calculating heart beats.
"If you're not changing code by November this year, you will not get this thing
done on time. It's that simple," Canadian expert Peter de Jager said -- last
year.
Still, no one is panicking and health officials stressed they will solve the
problem.
"There's still plenty of time," said Gaulin. "It's up to health authorities to get on
top of this. . . we won't have patients dying or suffering because of a computer
glitch."
Brian Shorter, director of regional information systems with the
Vancouver-Richmond Health Board, which oversees the management of local
health facilities, said there's no reason for worry.
"I would be quite happy to be in a hospital on Jan. 1, 2000."
Manrico Scremin, a partner with KPMG, which provides consulting on the
millennium bug, wasn't so sure. He advises hospitals to have plenty of
technicians on hand at midnight Dec. 31, 1999 to deal with any alarms that
go off if machines fail.
Local health care providers admit it will be tough to get the necessary fixes
done on time.
The task of going through hospital computer programs and checking out
equipment is enormous.
Alberta's ministry of health conducted a three-month study late last fall to find
out what needed fixing and replacing.
It's now handed out $170 million to health care facilities to hire the necessary
computer experts to update programming and replace equipment that can't be
fixed, said spokesman Garth Norris.
Yet B.C.'s health ministry admits it has no idea how far along regional health
boards and hospitals are to solving the problem -- nor does it have any plans
to launch it's own study or or set up deadlines for the regional boards and
facilities.
Shorter says the biggest problem the facilities face will be finding the
computer experts to fix the problems.
"There's already a shortage so we know we have to plan ahead."
That may be an understatement. There are 350,000 unfilled vacancies for
computer programmers in the United States, and those jobs are attracting
Canadian programmers, who are also in short supply.
The region is now in discussions with the Hospital Employees' Union to see if
some staff can be trained to do the most basic changeover jobs, Shorter said.
Connie Wilks, a spokeswoman at Vancouver's St. Paul's Hospital, said
people are "taking a slack attitude" to the problem.
"They're hoping for a magic bullet despite the fact they know hospital
equipment will be impacted," she said.
St. Paul's is currently undertaking a study of what needs to be done. And that
puts the hospital far ahead of most provincial health care providers, she said.
Vancouver Hospital is in a similar situation.
"We're in the second stage of evaluating our computers and medical
equipment," said director of communications Linda Bartz. "We've been
working on it for six months. We expect a report in a couple of months on
what it's going to take to get us 2000 compliant."
Already the hospital knows it will take about 70 man-years and tens of
millions of dollars to get everything compliant, she said.
"Timing is an issue," said Bartz. "But the real issue is where the money is
going to come from."
If the province does not provide extra cash, that will come out of patient care,
she said.
Bartz and Shorter say the province may be bluffing in its refusal to provide
extra funds for the change over.
But Gaulin said there have been no requests for money so far from health
boards, so no money has been set aside in this year's budget.
Next year it will be too late to start, experts say.
Gaulin was unmoved.
"We can't be expected to be the saviour if they can't plan ahead . . . It's not
something that should have been left to the last year."
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