The Town of Shelburne of Shelburne issued an open letter calling on all Nova Scotians to have a discussion about health care.
Specifically, the town along with the Nova Scotia Health Coalition, wants to talk about what they call a crisis in rural health care.
The letter states that since 1980, when the Roseway Hospital was built, successive provincial governments took ownership of the hospital and stripped away services like surgery and obstetrics.
In addition, Mayor Karen Mattatall says the emergency department at Roseway was closed on more than 70 occasions in 2017.
She knows that other rural communities are facing the same conditions, or worse.
Mattatall says that was evident over the holidays.
“There have been a significant number of locations that have had closures and for a significant amount of time. We’re hoping to contact them and get together and discuss the concerns and certainly, hopefully, make the province aware that this is a concern they really have to start paying attention to.”
Mattatall says they welcome the public, health care professionals and elected officials to participate in the discussion planned for the week of February 12 to 16.
A location hasn’t been determined yet.
The mayor says they are considering options like teleconferencing and videoconferencing.
“Whether it’s arranging a central location, whether it’s via Skype, Facetime, whatever we need to do, we certainly will make every effort to try to bring a meeting together so we can talk about our concerns.”
To read the open letter, click on the link to the Town of Shelburne website: https://www.town.shelburne.ns.ca/
