Rural residents deserve first class health care, said a group of 70 people from a southeastern Saskatchewan community in Regina last week.
Representatives from Redvers and area were the largest delegation to appear so far before the province’s standing committee on health care.
And they were among the most fervent in defending their right to health services, especially acute care.
“Rural residents must not have one level of health service and urban residents another,” said health centre administrator Myrna Peterson. “We are not second-class citizens here in Redvers.”
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Their concern, and that of others who have appeared before the committee, is the possible implementation of recommendations made by the Fyke Commission on Medicare.
Ken Fyke recommended that 50 small hospitals be converted to primary health centres, removing their ability to do acute or emergency care. They would open only eight to 12 hours each day.
Doug Jonassen told the committee how his daughter Kristen, now five, would not be alive today if not for the services available to the family.
Three weeks after she was born Kristen developed a serious respiratory illness. She was stabilized at the Redvers health centre and rushed to Brandon. Jonassen said if the family had had to drive more than 30 minutes to another facility, Kristen would not be alive.
“We don’t have dollar figures or statistics. We don’t have graphs or charts to show you why we feel that it is so important to keep our local health centre,” Jonassen said. “We have living proof.”
If Redvers loses its acute care, Peterson said people will have to drive 250 kilometres to Regina, 160 km to Brandon or Estevan or 300 km to Yorkton.
“The required travel distance to other larger centres from Redvers makes this area unique in its needs,” she said.
Earlier in the week, the Saskatchewan Registered Nurses’ Association said the province has an opportunity to revolutionize primary health care by following a comprehensive care model.
“Comprehensive focuses on the process of community empowerment and increasing control over all those factors that impact health and addresses the root cause of the problem or disease,” SRNA president June Blau said.
The SRNA called for two primary health care demonstration projects by next spring, with one being a rural model.
