Keeping up the fight

"A basic medical services infrastructure for rural and remote areas [should] be defined, such as hospital beds, paramedical staff, diagnostic equipment, transportation, ready access to secondary and tertiary services, as well as information technology tools and support."

-Recommendation no 27. CMA Rural and Remote Policy 2000

This definition of what constitutes "basic medical services infrastructure" comes from the Society of Rural Physicians discussion paper on Rural Hospital Service Closures dated April of 2009. The whole document can be viewed at: http://www.srpc.ca/librarydocs/H_closures_2009.pdf

The Society of Rural Physicians, a national organization representing around 3,000 rural doctors, recently added their voices to the growing contingent of medical professionals, business owners and community leaders who are outraged that laboratory testing and X-ray services will be removed from Lewisporte.

Note that the recommendation referred to only relates to "basic medical services." Diagnostic equipment is there in black and white as being an essential component of the necessary infrastructure to provide a basic service. What happens when you don't have the tools available to provide so much as those basic services?

So much of what is contained in the discussion paper can be applied directly to the health care services of Lewisporte and the importance of maintaining the services that currently exist.

It adds fuel to the fire that is gaining momentum day-by-day. It supports what the Concerned Citizens Coalition is fighting so hard for.

Community members in Flower's Cove saw some light at the end of the tunnel last week when Health and Community Services Minister Paul Oram announced that the original plan to have the Flower's Cove health centre operate on a 12-hour basis reversed to enable holding bed capacity to be enabled as a 24-hour operation as is currently provided. So much for a done deal - sort of. But still the decision regarding the removal of the lab and X-ray services there remains the same. But then there's a by-election in the air for the Straits-White Bay North. Stranger things have happened.

It just keeps getting stranger as things play out. It leaves one to wonder how cutting $220,000 from the Central Health budget expenses is going to result in savings in the long run for the Provincial Government as the cost for transporting patients into Gander or Grand Falls-Windsor for X-rays hasn't been factored into that number. As was noted from information of the Concerned Citizens Coalition indicated at the Central Health annual general meeting, they have estimated the cost to government could very well surpass $1 million.

One thing is for certain, the Coalition isn't going anywhere soon and they won't leave any stone unturned in their quest to have this decision reversed. This is just the beginning of things to come from a group committed to ensuring their communities are entitled to "basic medical services infrastructure."

Karen Wells