91原创 Memorial Hospital (LMH) received a passing grade from the latest Fraser Institute British Columbia Hospital Report Card, which rates it equal to or better than the provincial average in every category of health care except one.

According to the report released July 7 by the Vancouver-based right-of-centre libertarian think tank, LMH had a worse than average stroke mortality rate, ranking 31 out of 45 B.C. hospitals.

While the Fraser Institute report card doesn鈥檛 suggest why, it appears from the report rankings that communities with a high number of older people tended to report a lower than average stroke survival rate, likely because elderly victims were less likely to survive.

On the other hand, LMH had a better than average pneumonia survival rate, ranking 27 out of 73 hospitals.

It also reported fewer complications for first and subsequent caesarean deliveries than the provincial averages, ranking 15 out of 52 hospitals for caesarean and eight out of 52 hospitals for primary (first-time) caesarean deliveries.

The survey reviewed in-patient quality and safety in each of the province鈥檚 95 acute care hospitals based on volumes of procedures, utilization rates, and rates of adverse events.

Not all hospitals perform all procedures, so the number surveyed varied according to category.

As well, hospitals that performed a very small number of procedures were not included for privacy reasons, the institute said.

The Fraser Health Authority, which administers LMH, issued a written statement Wednesday in response to a Times query saying it 鈥渉as concerns with the way the Fraser Institute interprets data in this report.鈥�

鈥淩anking hospitals against each other can be misleading as each hospital serves different patients with different needs, requiring different medical procedures,鈥� the health authority said.

鈥淚t is more appropriate to compare hospital performance over time than to compare hospitals against each other. This concern has been noted by the Canadian Institutes for Health Information as well.鈥�

The report card uses data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information鈥檚 (CIHI) Discharge Abstract Database of patient records provided to CIHI by all hospitals.

The institute praised B.C. for being the only jurisdiction to provide names of all hospitals for the report.

鈥淏.C.鈥檚 health ministry should be applauded for providing patients, taxpayers, and health care providers the opportunity to learn more about the performance of local hospitals,鈥� Fraser Institute spokesperson Nadeem Esmail said in a press release.

鈥淭his stands in stark contrast to Alberta and Ontario, where the performance of public institutions is concealed behind a veil of anonymity,鈥� she added.

All of the information in the hospital report card is available online at .