The co-chairs of the Memramcook-Tantramar Community Task Force and the Rural Health Action Group are angry, and they’re not playing nice anymore.
In a strongly-worded letter addressed to the premier, Minister of Health Dorothy Shephard, Horizon CEO John Dornan, and other Horizon managers, the group says the relationship with Horizon management and the department of health has been “fundamentally broken” after an announcement on Friday informing them the Sackville Memorial Hospital would be closing its acute care unit.
Read the full letter of response here (pdf).
“We are embarrassed by our efforts to recruit people for jobs you seem to have no plans to actually offer. We are humiliated in the face of increasing numbers of citizens who ‘told us so’ about the government’s disingenuous nature. We believe that you don’t even understand your own Action Plan; it’s folly to think you can do ‘business as usual’ and then expect different results,” states the letter, signed by former Sackville mayors Pat Estabrooks and John Higham, and former councillor Margaret Tusz-King.
The Rural Health Action Group has been mobilizing since the summer, when Horizon announced cuts to ER service at the Sackville hospital, reducing it to 8 hours per day on weekends. That has since been expanded to a full seven days.
The group secured $15,000 in funding from the Town of Sackville to put toward recruitment activities, and has plans to work with the hospital foundation to fundraise further.
Group leaders were meeting with Horizon management, and had been informed that the most recent cuts to ER service were being made in order to maintain staffing levels for acute care. The tone and language around the issue was positive. But today’s letter conveys a strong sense of betrayal.
“It seems that our community has been offering an urgent call to action to stem the hemorrhaging of local nursing staff, while the government has actually been fostering the circumstances that create job-leaving morale, uncertainty of services, and ultimately, disappearance of rural health services for thousands of citizens,” reads the letter.
The group asks for a response by 4pm on Tuesday, and specifies items the group would like to see immediately addressed:
● quick action and public commitment to return the Sackville Memorial Hospital to 24/7 ER services and 21 acute care beds, as before
● Horizon budget commitments in line with ours, to continue our collaboration on recruitment
● honest staffing numbers, needs and predictions, so our recruitment efforts will be honest and successful.
The group threatens to pull its own support and funding of “anything related to Horizon Health”, and advise the town of Sackville and all citizens to do the same, if those issues are not addressed.
The group says it will be convening a meeting with regional leaders on Tuesday evening to confirm further collective actions.
“We have, so far, been quiet and optimistic. We have run out of patience,” reads the letter. “We expect more than an apology. We expect to see a plan and commitment to stop the bleeding, and return equitable healthcare to our region, through 24/7 ER and acute care hospital services.”
RELATED: