Lynn Lake, Man., residents frustrated patients being transferred to hospital an 8-hour drive away

Residents from Lynn Lake, Man., say they're fed up with hospital service disruptions and cutbacks due to staffing shortages. 

Two weeks ago, the Northern Regional Health Authority said it's transferring patients in Lynn Lake Hospital to Flin Flon because of staffing issues.

With multiple northern communities — Leaf Rapids, Lynn Lake and Snow Lake — facing service cutbacks in recent weeks, residents worry they'll lose their local hospital services for good. Local politicians say they've been given little to no notice for the changes taking place and they're calling on the Northern Regional Health Authority to provide more transparency for their communities. 

Fred Salter, 82, says his wife was transferred from Lynn Lake Hospital to Flin Flon last week with little notice. He was on a trip in Thompson when he found out, he said. 

"I tried to get a hold of the hospital in Lynn Lake and there was no answer. I tried to get a hold of Flin Flon [General Hospital] and nobody seemed to know anything, so I drove straight home," Salter said. 

By the time he got back to Lynn Lake, his wife was already being transferred out and she's 82 and has Alzheimer's, Salter said. 

Flin Flon is 234 km south of Lynn Lake, but with no direct highway route, it's about eight hours away by car. Salter says he used to visit his wife every day, but now with this transfer, he can only visit her twice a month because of the time it takes to drive there and the cost of accommodation to stay overnight. 

"Certainly air travel is not affordable, so it's very difficult. They didn't think about that when they made this decision, how they were going to affect the lives of other people," he said. 

In a statement to CBC news, NRHA says there are fewer than 10 patients transferred to Flin Flon and all were long-term-care patients awaiting placements in personal care homes.

It says staffing issues resulted in an inability to maintain patient safety care and it can't continue on a path that would jeopardize patient safety or lead to an emergency evacuation of in-patients.

"Patient safety was paramount in making the decision to transfer the in-patients from Lynn Lake Hospital to Flin Flon General Hospital which impacted our ability to enter into substantive consultation with the patients' families (which we would have preferred)," the health authority said. 

"The moves were done in a phased manner over the last week of July to again ensure patient safety and adequate resources were available to meet these patients' needs," the statement reads.

NRHA says the temporary closure will be in place for an "indeterminate amount of time" and stresses that the emergency department remains open 24-7.

Jim Shortt, the mayor of Lynn Lake, says other than an initial call from NRHA during the last week of July, he hasn't heard from the health authority since.