Health care takes front seat as N.L. legislature opens for the fall
CBC
Health care is top of mind for Newfoundland and Labrador's opposition leaders — and they only expect 15 days to raise their alarm bells.
The House of Assembly reopened on Monday for its fall sitting, just two hours after the governing Liberals announced a location for a new hospital that will eventually replace St. Clare's in St. John's.
PC Leader Tony Wakeham kicked off question period by probing Premier Andrew Furey on his government's ability to recruit health-care professionals to the province.
"After nine years of Liberal government, 175,000 people in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador are without a family physician," Wakeham said. "I ask the premier, where is the human resource plan for health professionals that the Liberal government said they had and then didn't have?"
Furey said the province's struggles with health-care human resources are not isolated to Newfoundland and Labrador, but progress is being made.
"We have the most robust incentive and recruitment package of any province across the country," Furey said. "We're starting to see actual tangible results."
According to Furey, those results include 146 new doctors since April 2023, 850 new nurses and new infrastructure.
"It will all come together, but it will take time," he said.
MHA for Terra Nova, Lloyd Parrott, added to the PC's collective concern surrounding health care in the province.
He said the Clarenville hospital no longer has internal medicine doctors — meaning if someone shows up to the emergency room with a stroke, heart attack, or serious infection, they won't be admitted.
Instead, he said, they will be stabilized and sent to another facility.
Parrott said he brought the issue to Health Minister John Hogan in July. He didn't want to bring it up in the legislature, but he didn't have much choice.
"[I] gave him all the opportunity in the world to fix this. I tried to do it the right way without coming in here and asking questions. I wasn't trying to politicize anything," Parrott said. "People, no matter where you live in Newfoundland and Labrador, deserve the same level of health care."
Hogan told reporters that Clarrenville has one internal medicine specialist who can work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday.
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