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Petition
Presented May 5, 2009
Lack of medical services at the Ramea Clinic
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MR. SPEAKER: The
hon. the Opposition House Leader.
MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank
you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate an
opportunity to bring forward a petition again, on behalf
of the residents of Ramea, Grey River and François,
with respect to the lack of appropriate numbers of
health care and nursing services which service those
communities. Today, of course, it is similar to the
petition I have presented on three previous occasions.
This is my fourth one being presented.
I have had an inquiry,
actually; the people of François want to know how come
their member is not up speaking on this as well. All of
the names on this petition today originate from the
community of François and that, of course, is in the
District of Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune.
I have no problem, and I
am more than pleased to present the petition on their
behalf, but they have made an inquiry wondering why the
Member for Burgeo & La Poile is making the petition
on their behalf. They figure that their MHA should be up
making the submission for them. In any case, that is up
to the Member for Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune to make that
decision. I am more than pleased to do it on behalf of
all the residents who are impacted by this.
Basically, Ramea of
course, is the larger community of those three. Grey
River and then François are two smaller communities.
Regardless of the size of the community, it is the need
that exists because we do not have the proper number of
nursing people there.
Again, in terms of trying
to help the minister out in presenting solutions to the
problem – because we do not seem to be getting any
answers or suggestions coming back the other way as to
how to resolve it. You get all kinds of excuses as to,
we cannot do this, we cannot do something else, but very
rarely do we see a solution.
Well, I say to the
minister, one of the solutions in getting the second
nurse practitioner to be stationed in Ramea would be to
change your recruitment retention bonus system that you
have, so that it is not restricted to new graduates, and
it is not restricted to people from outside this
Province. Why wouldn’t you, in the case of isolated
rural communities in this Province, allow the
recruitment retention bonus system to apply to anyone?
It might be some nurse,
for example, in this Province, who has retired. She has
worked out her work career somewhere, but she wants to
work on a part-time basis. Someone might be prepared to
go there for six months. Then, at least if you get
somebody for six months and you have someone else who is
lined up for another six months, you do what you have to
do; but, no, this department is not prepared to look at
solutions. They are prepared to look at reasons why you
cannot do something.
That is the problem we
have here. You can sit down and analyze to death what
the problem is, and you are still going to have the
problem tomorrow, you are still going to have it next
year, if you do not look at solutions. So I say to the
minister again, and the people in his department, if
that is an unreasonable, if that is an untenable, if
that is an undoable, suggestion that has been put
forward, can somebody tells us that it cannot be done
and the reasons why it cannot be done? Because that
seems to be - when you tried all over avenues and you
keep banging your head against the wall, you just do not
give up. If you are going to solve the problem you must
look for other solutions.
Again, we have handed the
minister, on a platter, a possible solution that might
be doable and yet we are hearing no response from the
minister. We are hearing nothing from the department as
to can that be done. If it cannot be done, I would
appreciate if the minister would stand up some time and
say this is why we cannot do it, or instruct some
official to tell us why we cannot do it. Why cannot
rural Newfoundland - we have different standards for
different communities all the time in this Province. If
you cannot solve a problem, you just do not close your
eyes to it. You must address the issue.
Anyway, silence is not
golden in this case I say to the minister. Silence is
not golden. Silence means you are prepared to give up on
it. Anyway, this member will not be silent. This member
will continue to bring these petitions forward on behalf
of the people of those three communities, including François.
Anyway, Mr. Speaker, at
this time I take my leave but I will be back again with
petition number five on this issue as soon as the
opportunity allows.
Thank you. |
