Plans to move gynecology care to Janeway could have negative impact on women's health, says nurses union
Interim health minister defends potential move
Newfoundland and Labrador's registered nurses' union says the provincial government's plan to move gynecology care to the Janeway children's hospital seems positive on the surface, but doesn't tell the full story or include its potential negative implications.
In the 2025-26 provincial budget, $3 million is earmarked to begin the process of moving gynecology care from the Health Sciences Centre next door to the Janeway.
Interim Health Minister John Haggie says the rationale centres around care bed vacancies at the Janeway — replicating a similar decision made at the Izaak Walton Killam Hospital for Children (IWK) in Halifax.
"They have women's health in the IWK children's hospital, and they've found its worked extremely well," Haggie told reporters last week. "We have significant bed vacancies at the Janeway, and it seems ironic to have 40 per cent of your beds vacant at one end of the corridor and 110 per cent of your beds occupied at the other end of the corridor."
But Yvette Coffey, president of the Registered Nurses' Union of Newfoundland and Labrador, told CBC News on Monday the decision could have unintended and dangerous consequences for women's health.
"If women are having to deliver a baby that's stillborn, say … they have to do that on the gynecological floor," Coffey told The St. John's Morning Show.
"To be on the same unit, listening to newborn babies cry or to see children running around like in the Janeway, like, that's cruel. That is absolute cruelty to these women. It was one of the biggest concerns we had when gynecology and obstetrics patients were moved together at the Health Sciences, and it's going to be even worse going to the Janeway."
Coffey says moving gynecology care into the Janeway is not comparable to the IWK Hospital in Halifax, as that hospital houses women's and children's care in separate buildings. Janeway staff would also need to be trained to be able to provide gynecology care, she says.
The provincial NDP also voiced concerns over the move in a letter to Premier Andrew Furey and Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services CEO Pat Parfrey last week.
In a news release, party Leader Jim Dinn called it, "unexpected, unnecessarily disruptive, and at odds with the mandate of the Janeway."
Speaking with reporters on Monday, Parfrey says gynecological surgery has already begun at the Janeway — but no formal transfer plan has been shared with government.
"Our concern is about the risk that's facing people having to be in the stretchers and corridors because we're over capacity at the Health Sciences Centre," Parfrey said. "We're in the process of engaging with the pediatricians and engaging with gynecology."
Parfrey says if a transfer were to happen, obstetrics and gynecology would be separate.
However, Coffey says most of her concern lies in gynecology care's connection to critical care — and an unannounced plan to also move it elsewhere.
Coffey says she learned from workers inside the health sector of a plan to move critical care, including intensive care units, to the new care centre destined for Kenmount Crossing. The change would move critical care about 15 minutes from the Janeway.
"A woman who has a hysterectomy, for example, if they start to bleed, if they start to hemorrhage, a 15 minute ride up to Kenmount Crossing could mean death," Coffey said. "This is a women's issue, and I feel like we're being treated as second class. And someone has to stand up and say no."
Coffey says it's a necessity to ensure gynecology and critical care are in the same location.
Parfrey agrees, and says the movement into Kenmount Crossing still needs to be explored.
"It's a reasonable comment, but this is 10 or 15 years away," Parfey said. "There's not a chance in the whole wide world that we're going to expose women to increased risk."
Women's health is a priority of the province's Health Accord, he added.
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With files from The St. John's Morning Show