Dear editor,I am asking the Vancouver Island Health Authority to supply details and any and all the documentation and/or reports upon which it relied upon to conclude that the Crown Isle site for our new hospital was the best location within the catchment area it is to serve.I and the questioning public will then be able to draw our own conclusions based on the same information provided to VIHA.Please note that I feel compelled to make this request only due to a lack of forthrightness in released information by the board and my distaste at the not-so-veiled threat by Mr. Hollett, quoted in a local paper May 13 when queried about reviewing this decision by Cumberland, a statement which I found unbecoming of a public organization and figure unless it is backed by facts.The statement: "For the timeframe we're working with, it's too late," said Grant Hollett, director of the North Island Hospital Project Board. "We need to focus on (securing) funding ... we're competing with a lot of other needs and there's scarce capital, so the sooner we get our business case done the more successful we'll be."Therefore, I also ask this question directly to Mr. Hollett, Have you had any indication from the Liberal government, verbal, written or otherwise, that any delay from the existing timeline in presenting a business case for the new Comox Valley hospital could result in its funding being jeopardized? If so, please provide.In my experience, it is never "too late" to make the right decision but it can be "too early" to make the wrong one if all the facts are not known.And finally, thank you for publishing Mr. Hollett's presentation to the VIHA board on Jan. 26, 2011 upon which he based his decision on the Crown Isle site.I note that it was only after a request from me that this report was published on your website, contrary to what was previously stated in the published minutes from that meeting.A subsequent review of his presentation gives little detail as to any of the factual criteria upon which he made his decision, (other than the proximity to NIC) and it does not allow for any prudent person to draw any conclusions 鈥� either for or against the Crown Isle site.I find this presentation severely lacking in information considering the weight of the topic it was to determine.B. Funk,Cumberland
