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Petition
Presented May 14, 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.
appreciate an opportunity
to present an eighth petition on behalf of the residents
of Ramea, Grey River and Francois with respect to the
current medical services situation that exist in those
communities.
All three, of course, are
serviced from the medical clinic, which is stationed in
Ramea. The persons who work there, obviously, they go
down the coast and do coastal clinics on a periodic
basis as well into Ramea and into Francois.
As indicated earlier to
this House, the problem, of course, is that there is
supposed to be two nurse practitioners servicing that
particular area and there is only one. Again, they
brought the matter to the attention of the authorities
at the Calder Health care Centre in Burgeo, which looks
after the services, as well as to the people at Western
Health. The issue is we cannot attract the additional
nurse practitioner that is needed.
We have suggested to
government that maybe they should look at changing the
existing retention and recruitment. We even had
questions in Question Period today where we have talked
about specially negotiated agreements with Coastal
Labrador, for example, to get the needed personnel
there. So we are wondering again, why doesn’t
government look at such a solution as that as a
possibility to attracting this additional person there?
We have whole communities that are without medical
service. One person cannot work seven days a week,
twenty-four hours a day for 365 days a year. She needs
to get rested. She needs to get a break like anybody
else. She cannot be on twenty-four-hour call all year
round.
Now, they have tried to
fix the service by bringing in an LPN and an RN actually
from Burgeo from time to time, but that is not
sufficient. You are always left short when you only have
one person of the quota that is there. You are always
dependent on somebody else coming in, and you do not
always get it. Any time you do not get it, the
communities are at risk.
I am hoping, of course,
that the Member for Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune will stand
up and support me on that issue as well, or at least
acknowledge that she is aware of the issue. She
represents one of those communities. Of course, the more
pressure we can bring to bear and highlight this issue
and the concern for this issue the better. Albeit, we
are on opposite sides of this House, it would certainly
be helpful if that member would, in fact, endorse even
in writing that she is aware of the concern, that she
supports the concern because working together on an
issue like this everybody gains. Nobody loses if this
issue is brought to the attention of the minister as a
joint co-operative package rather than be seen as
somebody in Opposition bringing it forward.
It needs to be solved,
and it is much easier solved if we have both parties
involved. I would encourage the member for that
particular district to get involved. It is her
constituents that are in need of this service as well
and I look forward to her standing and giving me support
on this issue.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. |
