SPRINGHILL - Enough is enough.
Springhill and area residents vented their frustrations at the continued closure of the emergency department at the All Saints Collaborative Emergency Centre and showed their support for an Amherst physician who late last week delivered an ultimatum that he would leave his practice of 3,000 patients if the province does provide more support for the Cumberland Regional Health Care Centre.
“People here are frustrated and their scared,” Don Tabor said after a crowd of approximately 200 people gathered in front of the Springhill CEC’s emergency department – which incidentally was open. “Our health care centre is critical. We’re worried we’re going to lose the service we have. The strain on them is incredible.”
Tabor, who at one time ran for the NDP in Cumberland South and was the CAO of the former town of Springhill, said when someone like Dr. Brian Ferguson speaks up about health care people listen because he has that much respect in the community.
“When Brian speaks up, people listen,” said Tabor. “The government has to get off the butts and do something. They have to stop treating rural Nova Scotia like Halifax because a city situation doesn’t work in a rural community. We don’t have the infrastructure and the transportation to get people to a regional hospital.”
In a Facebook post Aug. 16, Ferguson vented his frustration at the lack of progress in securing help for beleaguered medical staff at the Cumberland regional hospital on the outskirts of Amherst.
He said it may be time for him to depart the community where he has practiced medicine for more than 30 years, adding there are so few doctors available to work the ER and a declining number of specialists that the hospital’s regional status could be threatened.
With the ERs in Springhill, Pugwash and Parrsboro closed frequently and patients all coming to the regional facility, Ferguson fears it could spell disaster for health care in Cumberland County.
Virginia Jenkins, who moved to Springhill five years ago from Dartmouth, is not surprised with Ferguson’s frustration.
“They’re burning out the doctors and they’re leaving,” she said, adding she has been writing letters to the premier’s office since 2012 asking for help without reply. “Soon there will be none of them left.”
She sat hours in the emergency room to see a doctor and had to see specialists in New Brunswick because there were none on this side of the provincial border.
Bonnie McNeil, a retired nurse with more than 40 years experience, organized the rally. She said health care is in the worst shape she’s ever seen.
“What has taken us so long to stand up for what is ours, adequate health care,” she said. “Every government has had some share of the blame for this. I stand for health care no matter what party is in power. However, that being said, my last name is McNeil, but I’m in no way related to the dictator who is sitting in power in Halifax.”
She said it should take more than Ferguson’s threat to leave to spur government to take action to improve the local health-care situation.
“We should be thanking Dr. Ferguson for standing up for us. He shouldn’t have to, but he’s not afraid to speak up and neither should we,” McNeil said. “If we lose our regional status we are literally screwed. As Dr. Ferguson said, balancing the budget is important, but not on the backs of those who need health care.”
Both Cumberland South MLA Tory Rushton and Cumberland North MLA Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin spoke to the rally.
“I have three young kids and I’ve spent hours in this emergency room and the emergency room in Amherst. It shouldn’t be that way. When I was a kid, you went into the emergency room and you walked out in less than an hour,” Rushton said. “It was because of the doctors and nurses who wanted to come to Springhill and Parrsboro and work and look after our families. That’s not happening right now.”
Smith-McCrossin and Rushton are members of a local health task force with the mayors of Amherst and Oxford and the warden of Cumberland County.
“We have had enough of people not having family doctors, having to wait for hours in an emergency department or not having an emergency department to wait in,” she said. “I’m tired of every day people coming to me crying because they don’t have access to a doctor. That’s not all right. In this county, this province and this country we should not accept being treated like second-class citizens. You paid our taxes and you deserve to have access to doctors and specialists when you need them.”
A second rally is planned for Wednesday at 6 p.m. outside the Cumberland Regional Health Care Centre.
Twitter:@ADNdarrell
