Minister MacDiarmid:
This is the third time I have contacted you on this same issue. Twice when you were minister of labour, you chose to ignore me. Now you are minister of health, the very ministry that is at the heart of this pathetic situation. Your predecessor, Mr. de Jong tried to deal with this and to his credit he gave his underlings at Interior Health Authority a two week deadline to resolve the issue of Princeton’s emergency room closures.
July 12 of this year was the date and still our emergency room has remained closed four nights a week. As I said, Mr. de Jong did his part, however his minions have blatantly dragged their collective feet in fixing this issue. The to do list is so minuscule it would almost be amusing if it weren’t so tragically telling. We are still waiting for I.H.A. to complete a contingency plan of six doctors to sign up for a list stating they will come if one of our Doctors can not work due to illness or death. You tell me how a multi-million dollar organization dedicated to medicine can’t meet such a simple request. Other towns contingency plans are a paragraph or a page, can you honestly say as minister of health that this is in any way an acceptable situation? The entire community put at risk four nights a week due to a paragraph or a page being incomplete by those supposedly working on this ‘top priority’ situation.
I saw in the paper how appalled you were that medical information was being passed to drug companies and consequently four individuals were fired. This I like, it shows you may have a spine. Can you, will you, would you, could you, please crack the whip in I.H.A.’s direction and cause them to act. As former labour minister you understand that precedent had been set the first time a hospital was established in this town. Be aware though, that just because you make a request of these people, doesn’t guarantee they’ll comply, even if you are their direct superior.
We here are very tired of excuses. We dislike being brushed aside and find it hard when we see other communities get new hospitals or new wings to their existing buildings, while ours is downgraded and disregarded. This is a rich country, one whose constitution has equality as its cornerstone. We are not being treated equally. You can do something, you ought to do something and you are now in the right position to rectify this situation. Mr. de Jong tried but did not follow through. I ask that you do a little more than he, I don’t ask that you move mountains, just a nudge toward completing the contingency paragraph or page ought to make a difference.
Looking forward to your prompt solution to this serious problem.
Sincerely D. Dobie, Princeton