While I respect Dr. Susan Hartley’s work as a psychologist, her recent analysis of a public meeting hosted by Georgetown-St. Peters MLA Steven Myers about chronic emergency room closures at Kings County Memorial Hospital couldn’t have missed the mark more.
Dr. Hartley framed the meeting through a partisan lens, dismissing dialogue as "the same old reactive approach to addressing health-care shortfalls". This was both inaccurate and misleading, doing a disservice to the concerns and solutions residents and health care workers brought forward.
Over 100 people attended the meeting on a hot, summer night and thousands more watched online. Local councillors, eastern MLAs, the Health minister and representatives from the NDP and Green parties were also there. Virtually all of the speakers that night were affected residents or health-care workers but only the Greens objected to how the meeting unfolded, taking partisan shots.
If Dr. Hartley wants to view the issue through a partisan lens I would note that while our caucus spoke extensively about solutions to this issue throughout the spring sitting of the legislature, Green Leader Peter Bevan-Baker floated the idea of centralizing emergency services in Charlottetown and Summerside and giving up on the ERs in eastern and western P.E.I.
I would suggest that Dr. Hartley take a drive east to more closely follow developments.
Since last fall there have been 27 temporary closures of the KCMH ER due to lack of physician coverage with several being all-day closures. KCMH is vitally important to health-care delivery, serving over 18,000 Islanders and having the only emergency room east of Charlottetown.
For months our Leader James Aylward, myself and other MLAs have raised concerns about these chronic closures, urging government to respond with a greater sense of urgency. Most importantly we put forward constructive solutions to help improve the situation for the long term.
If we expanded scope of practice for RNs, LPNs, nurse practitioners, and pharmacists allowing them to work to the full extent of their training then pressure on existing resources at the ER would be reduced.
If we had better access to walk-in clinics in eastern P.E.I., pressures on the ER room would be reduced. There are no walk-in clinics held in Montague, one day a week in Morell, continued weeks of no clinics in Souris and no evening walk-in clinics east of Stratford.
If we made better use of existing resources more health needs could be met locally. In Murray River there is a vacant office that was supposed to be a health clinic for area residents. Government has been paying rent on the space since 2011 but no clinic is operating.
Most of all we need government to be up front with Islanders. The Health minister suggested an announcement about starting recruitment for two new emergency room physicians was a workable solution, yet downplayed the fact that the ER’s operating hours were cut by 14 hours a week. The Health minister also stated that there were no more people from eastern P.E.I. on the patient registry, overlooking widespread gaps and flaws in the accuracy of the registry. Stop the spin and admit what everyone knows — that there are many people without a family doctor in eastern P.E.I.
Health-care solutions aren't easy, but we need facts, not spin. We can handle it and can help improve things. We won't give up on making ER service in eastern and western P.E.I. better, smarter, and more efficient.
Sidney MacEwen is the MLA for Morell-Mermaid and opposition health critic.
