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Petition
Presented September 8, 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.
I appreciate an
opportunity again to make the government aware, of
course, of the need for dialysis services in Port aux
Basques and region. As I have indicated in my previous
fifty-two petitions in this House this year we have a
serious situation where, at any given time, ten to
fifteen people from Rose Blanche, La Poile, Grand Bruit,
up to the Codroy Valley and so on, need and use, on a
regular basis, dialysis services. In order to get those
services, they currently have to travel three hours at a
minimum. They either have to go to Stephenville or they
have to go to Corner Brook.
That is a pretty costly
event, in and of itself, the transportation cost alone,
to say nothing of the emotional and physical toll that
it takes upon the people who need the service,
particularly those - and most of these people who use
these services get it three times a week. Three days of
their lives are spent in a taxicab or a vehicle to
travel into Corner Brook to get hooked to the machine
and then travel back again.
Now, we have seen some
improvements over the years. We have some dialysis
services now in St. Anthony. We have some done in Grand
Bank. Of course, everybody knows that you cannot do
everything at one time, but we have been quite some time
now waiting. This issue has been brought to government;
we have had successive ministers. I have not had an
opportunity yet to meet with the current Minister of
Health, in his new position, but I will. I did meet with
the former one, and albeit they paid lip service, that
was about it. They paid lip service. There was no
indication that it was going to be dealt with and so on,
but hopefully, with the new minister, if I can get his
ear sometime, hopefully we can see something done in
next year’s budget to address this issue so that the
people out there do not have to be disadvantaged to the
extent that they are at the present time.
We have had the Premier,
for example, and others, talking about how you try to
make people’s lives safer, for example. This is an
example where people are improperly, unjustly, putting
themselves through terrible anguish in order to access
this service.
Now we see, of course,
government is cutting back on some services, trying to
streamline them, they claim, and X-rays and so on, and
laboratory services. Unfortunately, for these people who
are hooked to dialysis machines it is not that simple.
So if there are going to be savings, if there are going
to be priorities as to what can be done to assist
people, surely the ten or twelve people who live in the
southwest corner of this Province deserve the same
treatment, the same respect, and the same facilities
that everybody else in this Province have. You do not
need and you should not discriminate against these
people. The need is there, the need has been justified,
and I suggest we are in a better time than we have ever
been financially to be able to do this.
It is one thing to have
physical infrastructure being built, which we see a lot
of, and it has been acknowledged here today by the
Minister of Transportation, for example, great to see
those things, but I think even more importantly than
that we have to make people be as comfortable and secure
as they can when it comes to getting their treatment. It
is no good to have a big, fancy building that is full of
equipment if somebody has to travel through, and I would
say torturous winds like the Wreckhouse three times a
week to get dialysis. It is just unacceptable. They are
being treated as second-class citizens and they deserve
better treatment.
Thank you. |
