Her daughter wouldn't wake up — and the Bonavista emergency room was closed
The emergency room in Bonavista has closed multiple times recently due to lack of staff
Natasha Russell's two-year-old daughter, Scarlett, wouldn't wake up on Boxing Day morning.
She had been sick for a few days, but now Russell couldn't get the toddler to stop sleeping.
Scarlett needed medical attention — fast — but the emergency room in Bonavista, where Russell lives with her husband and three children, was closed due to staff shortages. The nearest open emergency room was in Clarenville, 110 kilometres away.
The family got in their vehicle and started driving.
"I was scared. I was crying. My husband had to calm me down," Russell, 26, told CBC News last week.
Russell and her husband, Travis, were already concerned about their daughter — they brought her to the hospital in Clarenville on Christmas Day, but were sent home with children's Tylenol.
This time, the toddler got a chest X-ray showing she had pneumonia on her right lung, and she tested positive for influenza A.
"They told me if I didn't bring her in … she basically could have died in her sleep. That's how bad she was. That's how severe she was," Russell said.
Scarlett was put on oxygen, received antibiotics and began improving. Russell said her daughter spent three nights and four days in hospital.
The emergency room at the Bonavista health centre, which serves more than 3,000 people in the town and thousands of others in the surrounding communities, closed multiple times over the holidays.
Those closures have stretched into 2023 — the emergency room has shut down multiple times this month and is scheduled to close again Friday until at least Tuesday.
Solving the problem
Since last summer, Bonavista residents have been holding rallies, fighting service reductions and demanding better access to doctors.
On Monday, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey announced the province would accept a new health-care proposal from the federal government. The deal includes an immediate, $27-million cash injection to help alleviate pressure on emergency rooms, pediatric hospitals and surgical and diagnostic backlogs.
But Furey said the extra funds won't solve the problems in rural health care by themselves.
"If it was just money, money would have fixed this a long time ago," he said.
Newfoundland and Labrador spends more per capita on health care than any other province, but residents have a lower life expectancy than the Canadian average.
Hear Natasha Russell's story in the video player below.
Still, Furey said he's hopeful the money will make a difference for rural communities — expanding rural access to health care is one of the shared provincial and federal priorities included in the proposal.
"The challenges of Bonavista are not unique to Bonavista," he said.
"They are important and unique if you are without a family doctor as an individual, but those challenges exist throughout our province and throughout our country and, arguably, throughout our world."
'A pit in my stomach'
Russell, a home-care worker, said she wants to raise her three children in Bonavista, the community where she grew up. But now, she's considering leaving for a bigger town.
"Every time I notice the closures, I mean, I kind of get a pit in my stomach because … you don't know what could happen," she said.
Like thousands of other Newfoundland and Labrador residents, Russell's family does not have a family physician.
Recently, the Bonavista town council announced plans to offer land and financial incentives for physicians who would agree to come to the community — in addition to existing provincial incentives.
"We are trying to do what we can to sweeten the pot, if you will, and to show that the community really wants this to happen. We really want to find solutions," said Bonavista Mayor John Norman.
He said the town hasn't made any final decisions, and he wants to see more help from the provincial government.
Russell said she hopes help is on the way, but for now she doesn't feel safe in her home community.
"Life doesn't stop. It still goes on with the hospitals closed," she said. "Anything could happen."
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With files from Garrett Barry