KING’S HEALTH PLAN ‘ILL-CONCEIVED’

The latest move by the King government to eliminate the regional physician complement designation is yet another blow to health care in West Prince and rural Prince Edward Island. Rather than address his government's failure to recruit and retain rural physicians, Premier Dennis King has decided to lower the bar on West Prince residents' expectation and right to have a full complement of 12 physicians.

Here's what it means for provision of needed medical services in West Prince. The region has one acute care facility (Western Hospital) to provide in-patient services and an emergency room (ER), five primary care clinics, two long-term care facilities, a dedicated palliative care unit, four community care facilities, and extramural home care requiring physician availability for consultation with nursing providers.

Sometime in the past it was deemed that 12 doctors were required to fulfill the medical tasks associated with the aforementioned health care facilities and programs.

Presently, a mere eight physician full-time equivalents are available in West Prince to bear this awesome burden, with little promise that help is on the way, let alone any form of succession plan. Is it any wonder why doctors are exiting the area?

So Premier King's answer to the rural doctor shortage is to remove the 12 physician benchmark with some blind hope that physicians from other regions will swoop in to serve the medical needs of West Prince residents. How can this plan be considered anything close to reasonable?

We are grateful for the dedicated, hard-working highly skilled physicians, nurses, and health care workers who remain, struggling to provide our health care in West Prince, and across the Island under difficult and challenging conditions.

However, the proposed illconceived plan of eliminating the 12 physician complement leaves West Prince residents' prospects for accessible medical care, and hopes for retaining its one remaining ER and hospital facing death by a thousand King health care cuts.

Herb Dickieson is a retired physician and is the NDP candidate for District 25 in the next provincial election. He lives in O’Leary.