Health Care in Cross Lake - and the four heroines, Brenda, Yvette, Lisa and Rhonda

Councillor Cathy Merrick (photo with me above) is doing everything she can to improve the delivery of health care in Cross Lake, Manitoba. But there has been an appalling lack of support from the federal Conservative and provincial NDP governments. This must change.

But rather than just speak about the problems the people of Cross Lake have experienced in accessing health care I want to put an emphasis on recognizing four heroines.

In order to do this, I must first describe the situation in Cross Lake. To provide for acute care, there should be a complement of about 12 nurses. There is no hospital in Cross Lake, there is only a health centre for the approximately 6,500 people in the community. The health centre has about 22,000 visits per year - it is very busy - and it is busy during the evenings and nights as well as during the day. For the last several months, four nurses - Rhonda, Lisa, Yvette and Brenda - have provided the staffing for acute care at the Cross Lake Health Centre.

I will describe their shifts as they told me. All four work during the day every day (only rarely have they been able to have one off on a weekend). One of these four nurses then works the 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. shift. A second works the 9:00-12:00 p.m. shift. A third works the 12:00 midnight to 9:00 a.m. shift. All four, including the nurse who worked the overnight shift then work the day (9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. shift). All these shifts are busy shifts!!

Because these four nurses cover all the clinics during the day as well as the emergency care, it has been a tremendous challenge. From time to time clinics have had to be cancelled because the nurses are just stretched too thinly - but the emergency care has continued round the clock.

[I should note that cancelling the clinics has created major problems in the delivery of health care in Cross Lake - and I heard of patients who had not been able to get a clinic appointment for a long time - this must be changed.]

But for now, let me emphasize the incredible work of Rhonda, Lisa, Yvette and Brenda. They are heroines in the delivery of health care. They need to be applauded and recognized for their incredible efforts.