NEWS RELEASE
Office of the Official Opposition
For Immediate Release
Documents show air ambulance decision made well before Drodge Report
Documents obtained this week under the Access to Information Act from Eastern Health show that the decision to move the air ambulance out of St. Anthony to Happy Valley-Goose Bay was initiated as early as August 21st, 2009, and the recent consultant’s report was a farce to back-up actions that government was already planning to take, says Opposition Leader Yvonne Jones and The Straits-White Bay North MHA Marshall Dean. The issue was raised earlier today in the House of Assembly.
The documents in question show meetings took place between the director of the air ambulance program in the province and the health board in Labrador last summer. Of the eight recommendations put forward by the director of the air ambulance program, seven were used in the Drodge report commissioned by government.
“I have no doubt that government had started the process of moving the air ambulance out of St. Anthony as early as August of last year, one month before Trevor Taylor resigned,” said Ms. Jones. “I guess the reason for Mr. Taylor’s resignation is much clearer now. It is one thing for a cabinet minister to be a casualty because he didn’t have the guts to stick around and fight his own government, it is quite another to force this decision upon the people of the northern peninsula under the guise of a false report supplied by a consultant who was hired by government. The actions of this government stink of a cover-up and are absolutely shameful.”
“The Drodge report is simply a cheap re-write of what government already planned to do. He was told what to write, how to write it and when to bring it forward,” said MHA Dean. “The only recommendation that wasn’t accepted from the August discussions was that this be phased in over a three to five year period. Instead, government is now rushing this move before the appropriate infrastructure and services are in place. Government has not been up front during this entire process and these documents prove once again that government has been less than truthful on this issue and the Drodge report is a farce.”View (.pdf) FOI Meeting August 2009
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Darrell Mercer
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