The City of Caraquet is taking great measures to convince the Minister of Health, Dorothy Shephard, to maintain and even improve the existing services at the Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus de Caraquet in its reform.
The elected officials unanimously adopted, on Monday evening, the production of a brief, in collaboration with the doctors of the region and the Action H Committee. It will be presented to the Minister during the consultations scheduled for this spring relating to future changes to the health system.
This decision follows the intentions of the Higgs government, then in the minority, to close the emergency rooms of six rural hospitals, including that of Caraquet, at night in February.
Popular pressure made then minister Hugh Flemming back down. It also led to the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Robert Gauvin, who had become independent.
But now that the Progressive Conservatives have been in the majority in Fredericton since September, the specter of new cuts that would specifically affect Caraquet and the Acadian Peninsula is coming back to haunt the entire city council.
Before the brief, the City will send a vision statement to the Minister in the coming days. We would like to remind him of several important points in the development of local hospital services.
The document, of which Acadie Nouvelle obtained a copy, informs that “the greater region of Caraquet has been able to recruit and stabilize the number of qualified doctors and nurses in recent years in collaboration with other hospitals in the Acadian Peninsula”.
It was also added that “the Hospital of the Child Jesus of Caraquet must maintain a minimum of 12 acute care beds and see to increasing the number of beds for patients requiring long-term care”.
According to them, the emergency department at the Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus is an essential service for the proper functioning of health care in the Acadian Peninsula. The City’s vision for quality health care in rural hospitals consists of rapid access to primary care such as a 24-hour emergency with ambulance stopping.
Taking these points into account, Caraquet is convinced that “the government must provide these regions with rapidly accessible primary care for their safety and development in order to maintain dynamic rural regions”.
Fredericton “must improve the services in rural hospitals and maintain there those which are already there, such as the hospital beds and the oncology clinic at the Hospital de l’Enfant Jesus de Caraquet”, it is argued.
The letter states that the city council’s vision is to maintain an emergency service and ambulance stopping, the delivery of quality, safe, innovative and accessible health care in a facility with a minimum of 12 care beds. active by competent and dedicated staff concerned with the quality of life of its patients.
This message to Minister Shephard specifies that the City of Caraquet considers the accessibility of primary care with 24 hour emergency and ambulance stopping in rural areas essential for its community, the safety of an aging population, proximity to care, conservation. achievements and assiduous recruitment of health professionals.
The writing concludes with the arguments that “tertiary services can be centralized since these require large teams of health professionals and the aging population in rural areas must be reassured with access to primary care”.
In the absence of the mayor Kevin J. Haché Monday evening, the director general of the municipality, Marc Duguay, explained that the City had received a letter from the ministry in early December to inform him of Caraquet’s vision on the subject. of this coming reform.
“We will go even further with a beautiful brief that we will present to him during the public consultations in the spring. You have to see the positive. This government is consulting us and the Prime Minister has repeatedly promised not to close hospitals and emergency rooms in rural areas. We will also consult to write this memoir. Our hospital is almost 70 years of work. And one thing that is important is that things are going well in the Acadian Peninsula in terms of health care, ”said Mr. Duguay, who does not rule out involving the communities of Lamèque and Tracadie in this debate. .
“With what Minister Shephard and Daniel Allain (Minister of Local Government and Local Governance Reform) are doing (the consultations before reforming), it’s already better than last time. We’re going to touch wood, ”said councilor Jean-Guy Blanchard.
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