05) NEWFOUNDLAND HEALTH WOES SPARK MASS RALLY

(The following article is from the August 1-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By Sean Burton

The province of Newfoundland and Labrador has been wracked by problems in its healthcare system, particularly during the past year. A scandal has been rocking the Eastern Health authority over flawed cancer tests which may have resulted in dozens of unnecessary deaths. The commission of inquiry into the issue has gone after certain officials with particular zeal, including premier Danny Williams, who had remarked that the pressure being placed on health and government officials has been very great. Several pathologists have already resigned under that pressure, further undermining the quality of healthcare services.

     The latest issue is unfolding in central Newfoundland, where overworked doctors in the region's two main hospitals in the towns of Grand Falls-Windsor and Gander have been leaving. This is hardly surprising. The Central Health authority announced a plan in May to compensate for the departure of two of the region's four obstetrician-gynecologists. The plan calls for alternating obstetric care between the two hospitals, upsetting many residents who fear, quite rightly, the extra distance to be travelled. The towns are an hour apart on the Trans-Canada Highway, but the distance will be even greater for those living in coastal areas also serviced by Central Health.

     Fed up with the way the province handles healthcare, over a thousand people staged a protest at the Central Newfoundland Regional Health Centre in Grand Falls-Windsor on July 3. Members of the community want the province to be more active in recruiting and retaining doctors.

     A crowd of this size is considerable by Newfoundland standards, Grand Falls-Windsor having a population of about 16,000. The people realize the dangers facing healthcare, but it remains to be seen whether they will link those problems to Newfoundland's political realities.

     Provincial Health Minister Ross Wiseman was in town, but declined an invitation to the July 3 rally. His snub is a tell tale sign of how the government really feels about healthcare.

     Medical specialists are rare in Newfoundland. Many serious injuries or health problems have to be sent either to the capital, St. John's, or out of the province to Halifax or beyond. Even certain cancer treatments can only be done in St. John's, at Memorial University's health science centre.

     This has always been the case, but the recent cancer test scandal and the protest in Grand Falls-Windsor have made the problems more acute. It remains to be seen whether or not the "Progressive" Conservative government of Williams will take serious action. Newfoundlanders and Labradorians expect it of him, but Williams does not have a history of improving public services. If anything, the opposite is the case, as his crackdown on a public sector strike in 2004 revealed.

     Williams owes his popularity to the nationalist bent of his economic policies, but such a card can't be played forever, and it hasn't stopped many people from seeking work out of the province.