MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand today to present a petition on behalf of thousands of people in Labrador, who unfortunately had to take matters into their own hands in order to get the attention of government by circulating petitions asking that some attention be given to the issues of air ambulance medevac out of Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, I have in front of me correspondence that I have been sending back and forth to government departments for well over a year. In fact, Mr. Speaker, correspondence dating back nearly two years involving particular cases in Labrador where the response times were delayed on air ambulance.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, this past summer, in August month in particular, I dealt with three particular cases of delays in air ambulance services out of Labrador air medevac. At that time, I was asking for a review into those cases that did not occur by the department because they did not take the issue seriously enough, just like the minister is not taking it serious today. Mr. Speaker, in all three of those cases there were extreme delays, and I realized afterwards that the delays were because the air ambulance aircraft in St. John’s had been broken down for a number of weeks and we had only one air ambulance in the Province based out of St. Anthony that was trying to cover off all of Labrador and all of the Island portion of the Province.

Mr. Speaker, to me, that is negligence on behalf of the Department of Health to allow that to happen. Any time one of these aircraft is down, there should be another one to back it up and to replace it.

Mr. Speaker, right now, today, the majority of air medevacs or air ambulance services are being provided through – or the major number of them is coming out of St. Anthony or the Northern Peninsula area and out of Labrador. If you look at the entire Labrador-Grenfell region, they themselves have more air medevacs than anywhere else in the Province. I think it warrants, Mr. Speaker, not moving a service from one end of the Labrador-Grenfell area to the other end, because that is not the solution and the minister knows that is not the solution.

The real solution, Mr. Speaker, is ensuring that there is an adequate amount of service, whether that comes in a third air ambulance being based in Goose Bay, in this part of the Province, or whether it comes in providing for the service through another form of aircraft ambulance, whether that is through contracted services or some other form.

Mr. Speaker, the minister stood today, after telling me that he was so concerned with the cases in Labrador, and the people he met with, he stood and got on with a lot of political rhetoric, because no one is suggesting in any way that an air ambulance service needs to be moved out of St. John’s or moved out of St. Anthony. What we are suggesting is that there needs to be an adequate service based in Labrador.

If today the gap in that service happened to be in Port aux Basques, or in Marystown, or in Gander, we would be standing here doing the same thing; because people need to be assured that they have good access to air medevac services when they need it, Mr. Speaker.

I am suggesting to the government that they put some real effort into providing that service; that they put some real effort into ensuring that next August we do not end up with three more cases in Labrador where there are extreme delays.

Mr. Speaker, as long as the government chooses to ignore the real issue here, it is not going to get fixed, and that is what is unfortunate. The unfortunate part is that this is people’s lives; you are playing with people’s lives. People need to have that kind of insurance.

Minister, what we are saying to you is not cut the services we have, or gut the services we have.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to conclude her remarks.