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Petition
Presented May 11, 2009
Dialysis Unit for Western Newfoundland
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MR. SPEAKER: The
hon. the Opposition House Leader.
MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank
you, Mr. Speaker.
It gives me great
pleasure to stand on my seventh petition concerning
dialysis equipment for the Southwestern region of the
Province. It certainly generated a lot of feedback,
shall we say, over the weekend. I am very pleased to
say, in fact, we did have a telephone conference this
morning with two of the individuals involved in Western
Health, and they provided me with some information,
because they said they certainly would not want me to be
misinformed in what I say here in the House.
It was not a case so much
of being misinformed, I guess; it was not having the
total information package that was required. So, those
two individuals who work with Western Health did give me
some information which is crucial as well.
First of all, of course,
the training issue of staff: We have already indicated
that the staff in the institution could be trained to
provide the services. I was under the impression that it
was about six weeks to do it, but apparently, according
to the information now, it takes about eight weeks to do
the training, so not a big deal, a couple of extra weeks
to do the training. The bottom line is, the training can
be done and there would have to be a certain period, two
to four weeks, of clinical training as well. Of course,
the hospital could not free up the four or five persons
to go and do that training all at one time. You need
four or five in a pool, of course, who are capable of
doing it, but that does not require that you take four
or five out of your staff and go do all the training at
one time. You can train so many today and, as time goes
on, you have a continuing education program to provide
that training, so that training is possible there.
The equipment: Apparently
it is not an official fundraising effort of the local
foundation but, I assure you, it will not take much for
it to become such and it will not take much for the
people of Southwestern Newfoundland to put their money
where their mouth is and make sure that the equipment is
provided. We have provided hundreds of thousands of
dollars in the last ten years through the Health Care
Foundation to support equipment purchases, not only in
our own hospital in Port aux Basques but in the hospital
in Corner Brook, in the Western Region, because we all
use that as well. It is not that we will only support
what we are going to use in our communities. We will
support what is needed by anybody in the region.
We have been doing that
for ten years and, I do not mind saying, for the last
ten years I have taken part in every single one, I
believe, except one, telethon that we have done to raise
funds. It takes place over a weekend, usually in October
month. So, equipment is not going to be an issue.
Now there is a proposal
in the works, of course, and it is going to take some
time to finalize the details of the proposal. How many
people will need home care? Is home care appropriate in
some circumstances as opposed to a satellite system?
What do we do that accomplishes and maximizes everything
on a – enhances the services for dialysis on a
regional basis?
We are not suggesting
that we should just look after the needs of Port aux
Basques and nobody else. Obviously it needs to be a
package that services the whole region, but the bottom
line is, regardless of what package you choose, you have
to have some services to the people of Southwestern
Newfoundland which keeps them from having to travel
extensive, unacceptable distances every single week of
their lives, not once but three times a week, from Port
aux Basques to Stephenville or Corner Brook to get these
services.
So, a little bit more
information. I have more but time does not permit me
today in this petition to get it all out, but I will
have some time as long the House is open, from now until
whenever the dialysis is finally agreed to, so I will be
back with further.
Again, the people have
not given up on it. I went home for the weekend,
actually, and I picked up another suitcase full of
petitions, so I have lots of petitions from now until
2011 when election time comes around again. We will see
then how government has dealt with the issue.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. |
