Roblin resents loss of diagnostic health staff

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This article was published 27/08/2020 (1954 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Residents of a rural Manitoba town are railing against the Prairie Mountain Health Authority, accusing it of cutting local services and pilfering staff from its diagnostic lab to fill vacancies elsewhere in the region.

“It’s devastating news for our community on so many levels,” said Jana Knight, a lifelong resident of Roblin, a town of about 1,600 in western Manitoba.

Last Friday, residents learned the lab at the Roblin Health Centre would be partially closed Sept. 1, and two full-time staff who worked in diagnostics would be relocated to the Russell Health Centre, which is experiencing high patient volumes 54 kilometres south of Roblin on Highway 83.

Roblin residents will now have to travel 30 minutes on the highway for some diagnostic services, Knight said.

“They’re making health care less and less accessible in rural Manitoba… and if we don’t fight for it I’m worried about the future of our community,” she said.

According to Shared Health, the provincial agency responsible for diagnostic services, the consolidation was prompted by a number of staff vacancies throughout the geographic area related to retirements, resignations and maternity leaves.

Ultrasounds, electrocardiograms and blood sample collection will continue at the Roblin Health Centre on weekdays, a spokesman for Shared Health said in a statement to the Free Press, but emergency diagnostic testing services, including X-rays and analysis, will happen in Russell, Grandview or Brandon.

“Recruitment to fill vacancies throughout the area is ongoing, beginning in Russell,” the spokesman said.

However, residents fear the cuts are permanent and will have a domino effect in the community, including the closure of the emergency room.

“Time is of the essence when it’s your health,” said Roblin resident Jill Cross, 77. “As a senior citizen, I think I have the right to a diagnostic service in my own community… I’m not asking for an MRI or CT scan, but my god I’m asking for a blood test.

“It will kill the town because the next thing that’s going to close is the ER. We’re going to lose our four doctors and we fought so hard to get them,” Cross said.

Municipal leaders are encouraging residents to call PMHA chief executive officer Penny Gilson and public health leaders to express their concerns. A request for comment from the PMHA was not returned Thursday.

On its website, the municipality warned Roblin’s doctors may leave if the emergency room closes, and suggested without X-ray or blood sample analysis available on site, the ER could not operate.

“They’re telling us it’s temporary and we’ve heard that nonsense before,” Municipality of Roblin council head Robert Misko said. “The process sure seems geared to us that all they’re trying to do is shut down our hospital.”

Bob Moroz, president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, echoed that worry.

“MAHCP is concerned that this reportedly temporary closure could become permanent, as has happened with other rural health care services,” Moroz said.

When asked if the ER will remain open, the spokesman for Shared Health said “decisions related to service impacts involve consideration by clinical leadership for the region as well as the local health care team. Those discussions are ongoing.”

Liberal leader Dougald Lamont said vacancies in rural health care are being aggravated by “panic retirements” over uncertainty surrounding proposed legislation affecting provincial employee pensions. Lamont said a months-long delay to pass new legislation that would stabilize the pension plan is “driving people out of the public service.”

“In the middle of (a) pandemic, the Pallister PCs are closing a rural lab in the Prairie Mountain Health (region) … the very region where COVID-19 outbreaks are highest,” Lamont said in a statement. “This lab should not be closing and the province should be stepping up to hire new lab techs to make sure rural health care has the support it needs.”

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca