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Petition
Presented May 20, 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.
With the indulgence of
the Chair and the approval of the Member for Gander, I
would like to present another petition, if I might. This
time on behalf of the residents of the other end of my
district, that being the residents of Ramea and Grey
River and François, and that of course concerns again,
for the tenth time, the issue of the lack of proper
personnel, the numbers of personnel, to provide the
necessary medical services at the Ramea clinic.
As indicated, we are
dealing with three isolated communities. These are not
some places that are accessible by roadway. You get to
Ramea, Grey River and François by boat or by
helicopter. It is not easy in the best of times to gain
access to either of those communities, particularly when
you have weather circumstances, particularly in the
winter months.
The problem here is we
have a clinic in Ramea that is supposed to have two
nurse practitioners. There is one lady who is a
nurse-practitioner. Give due credence and diligence to
the officials of the health care system at the Calder in
Burgeo, they have tried their best. The site facilitator
there has tried her best to try to get someone to fill
the spot but we have determined, after months and months
of trying, that it cannot currently be done under the
present situation. It has been suggested that perhaps a
way to do it would be to modify the current recruitment
bonus system so that we could attract someone. At the
present time, the current system provides that you can
only hire a nurse practitioner or let them avail of the
recruitment benefits and bonuses if that person is a new
graduate or if that person resides or comes in from
outside the Province.
What we are suggesting to
the minister, is if we can come up with all kinds of
formulas to deal with unique situations that exist in
other places in this Province, can we at least try to
modify the recruitment situation so that if anyone in
the Province, other than a new graduate, is prepared to
go there? For example, we do have some retired nurse
practitioners in this Province. It might even be an RN
who is retired, who might, for the right incentives, be
prepared to go to this community and service these
communities. Even if it is on a one-year basis now and
someone else is prepared to go there again on another
one-year basis, for example. At least we have to provide
the options, because we know right now, the people of
the communities know, the people who work in the health
care system in Burgeo now know, that unless we do
something different we are not going to have an
opportunity to fill that spot.
So all we are suggesting
to the minister and the department is, would you be at
least agreeable to looking at this, because it cannot
even be done now if the department does not permit it?
The Western Health people can try what they want, and if
it is not being done, obviously it will not work.
Now, maybe with the new
nurses’ situation, hopefully there are some provisions
in that. The minister is indicating to me that maybe we
have a deal now whereby we can do that. If that is the
case, and we can do it without any problems and causing
any problems for the nursing union, if the government
has the ability now to deal with these unique
situations, this is certainly an opportunity, an ideal
opportunity to do it.
We have one person now
who services these three communities, 365 days a year.
You talk about having a home life and the stress that is
caused. I mean, the person can be as diligent as you
want, and this lady certainly is and very competent, but
there comes a point when you have to have a day off,
just for your own mental renewal.
So, again, I encourage
the minister – I am encouraged by his comment that we
can do it now, as he says. So, I am sure that these
communities will address some correspondence to his
office now, to say: Where do we go from here? Once it is
ratified, the nurses’ deal, hopefully we will be in a
position to actually do something about this.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. |
