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Petition
Presented November 30, 2009
Lack of Dialysis Services in Southwestern Newfoundland
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MR. SPEAKER:
Further
petitions?
The hon. the Opposition House Leader.
MR. KELVIN PARSONS:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I take this opportunity to present I
believe it is my sixty-eighth petition on behalf of the
people of Southwestern Newfoundland with respect to the
lack of dialysis services in that particular area.
In fact, since we were here - the
last one I did was in September, when we had a brief two
days here – there have been new developments as well.
We, of course, have a new Minister of Health now in the
form of Minister Kennedy, whereas Minister Wiseman used
to be the Minister of Health.
I am pleased to see, in fact -
because so far one of the individuals impacted by the
dialysis, besides writing to myself and calling and
sending e-mails, in fact, e-mailed the minister and the
minister did indeed get to her and we have had some
ongoing conversations. I think the minister – at least
this minister - has an appreciation of the problem,
whereas I cannot say the same for the former minister.
You get lip service being paid to it, and rhetoric, but
absolutely no action.
To date, I must say, this minister is
dealing with the thing up front. If there are answers
that need to be given, he goes out of his way to try to
get them. For example, we could not even find out, as a
public official in this Province, or as a person in this
Province who lives on the Southwest Coast, we could not
find out from the people at Western Health how many
people in Southwestern Newfoundland receive dialysis.
We did not want any names, did not
want any addresses, did not want any private
information, but asked a simple question of the people
at Western Health: How many people from the Codroy
Valley down to Rose Blanche, which is inclusive of Port
aux Basques and those areas, and Isle aux Morts, how
many people receive dialysis services and they have to
travel for them? We could not get the information.
Now, can you imagine?
Anyway, this lady e-mailed the
minister, and I am meeting with him later in the
afternoon; he tells me he has that information. All we
need is a simple number; because, of course, getting the
problem solved is based upon numbers. Because they have
been telling us for years, unless you have ten people in
your area we cannot justify the setting up of the
dialysis service.
Now, they have done it up in St.
Anthony, of course, they have done it down the Burin
Peninsula, they have done it out in Carbonear, and every
time our numbers go up they come up with the excuse: We
do not have the money in the budget. Every time the
numbers go down, they say: You do not need it now.
Of course the numbers go up and down;
because, believe it or not, folks, unfortunately, some
of these people die. They die. Part of the reason they
die is because they are not getting the proper service
that they need in getting dialysis. That is why the
numbers go up and down. Unfortunately, more people are
being added to the numbers as time goes on.
Hopefully, based upon a conversation
I am hoping to have with this Minister of Health this
afternoon, we will get the information as to numbers.
Hopefully, we will get some answers as to where we might
be able to go to resolve this problem.
Thank you. |
