3 months into urgent care in Whitbourne, mayor says coverage is uneven
Emergency room has been closed for over a year
Local leaders in the Whitbourne area say they're glad some health-care services are being provided but they believe urgent-care coverage is uneven and should be improved.
The emergency room at the Dr. William H. Newhook Health Centre in Whitbourne has been closed for more than a year due to a shortage of doctors, but officials opened an urgent-care clinic 3½ months ago.
It was set up to operate from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, but Whitbourne Mayor Hilda Whelan says in reality the schedule is widely inconsistent.
"A lot of people … don't know, like, which days [it's] going to be open. And I tell people, 'Just call the clinic like you would for a doctor's appointment,'" Whelan said Wednesday.
She said health officials have to work constantly to get staff to work at the clinic.
"They are finding doctors, maybe locums or maybe a spare doctor who's not in a hospital. That's how desperate and few doctors we have."
Whitbourne is still without the two doctors needed to reopen the emergency room at the health centre. Whelan said the three days a week at the urgent-care centre is a good starting point, but the goal is a return to 24-hour care.
Andrew Pretty, a member of the local service district in Dildo who has organized demonstrations to highlight the need for better care, agrees. He says people are frustrated.
"The hours lately are so sporadic and ever-changing, it's impossible for people involved with the committee to keep up with it, let alone someone from the public," he said.
Whelan says the situation highlights a problem the town has faced for over a year — a shortage of doctors.
"I think the government themselves are finding that it's not so easy to recruit doctors as they thought," she said. "It's not all about money."
Whelan says Memorial University's faculty of medicine should accept more internationally trained doctors and help them get licensed and ready to practise faster.
"If they have 30 doctors now who are waiting for practice-ready assessment, it's 12 weeks at the university. If they take eight this year, they got to wait till next year," she said. "And as far as I'm concerned, these are bottlenecks."
Pretty says residents will keep fighting for the Whitbourne emergency room to reopen.
"ER will be restored in that health centre. Because we're going to make sure it's restored. We're going to fight this, and we will get ER back to 24/7," he said.
With files from Heather Gillis
