GUYSBOROUGH: Despite filling vacant nursing positions at the Eastern Memorial Hospital in Canso, Guysborough’s Warden says municipal officials are requesting a meeting with the health minister.
Vernon Pitts said council is concerned with the growing situation involving doctors at the Guysborough Memorial Hospital and Eastern Memorial Hospital. Pitts said he was told one of the two doctors in Guysborough is retiring, along with two of the three doctors in Canso.
Following the regular monthly council meeting on February 19, Pitts said municipal staff sent a letter to provincial health minister and Antigonish MLA, Randy Delorey.
“We want to meet with the minister,” Pitts said. “We want to find out exactly where we are now, what the plan [is] going forward, and [if] there [is] any way we can buy into it.”
The warden said the impending doctor situations in the two communities has the municipality “against the wall.”
Pitts suggested they’re asking their provincial counterparts to do something.
“Here we are, stepping up to the plate, doing the heavy lifting, infusing the cash to recruit doctors and nurses,” he said. “That is not our forte, that is not our business – that is the province’s business, and we have to hold their feet to the fire.”
Pitts said they’ve addressed the RN situation at the Eastern Memorial Hospital, which has led to overnight closures of the Canso’s emergency department since May.
He indicated three new nurses have agreed to begin work in Canso within the coming months – which to him, is great news – however, it isn’t enough to re-open the hospital overnight if they can’t resolve the doctor situation.
For more on Guysborough’s fight for more nurses, go to: https://prwpuploads.s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com/residents-municipality-fight-for-nurses-at-local-hospitals/.