When is enough, enough?

NL Health Matters, By Mardi Collins

So, over the months I have shared how poorly the Province is doing in providing health care to us. Remember this is a public service, we are the clients and we are paying for the service.
And it is not just NL Health that is failing us. So are the licensing bodies, which should be making every effort to create pathways to ensure every trained medical worker in the province is utilized. Similarly, they should be doing a major ad campaign in the U.S., Ontario and Quebec. Other provinces are hiring hundreds of American trained workers right now.
You have told me your stories. Here are some of them….

• I am 50 and need a knee replacement. I have 15 years of work left, but expect to wait 7-8 years for my surgery. I need my knee today. My friend’s dad who has had four joint replacements is scheduled to have a second knee replacement soon. I am asking him to please leave his new knee in his will for me!
• I am a certified Physicians Assistant from the Canadian military. I served 23 years as a medic, and my retired colleagues in other provinces are working in offshore, mining and remote communities filling the role of doctors. Our training exceeds that of a Nurse Practitioner. But it is not recognized here, so I’m moving.
• I am an internationally trained doctor practicing here for 15 years. Getting licensed as a foreign trained doctor is expensive and time consuming. There is a lot of bias against us. Most of the international docs I know leave for other provinces within two to three years. This is because of unrelenting harassment by MCP. They can audit us several years in the past, judge that our billings are incorrect and demand that thousands of dollars be returned. We have no recourse. No province treats internationally trained doctors as badly as Newfoundland, so we leave and tell others to do the same.
• My husband passed away three and half years ago. The things I saw in the Health Sciences Complex were so alarming and disturbing that I don’t think I will ever be able to forget what he went through. Several times he had to go to the emergency department because he was so ill. He lay on a stretcher there for several days before being finally admitted to a room upstairs. Although he was taken inside, he spent days there in a room, on a stretcher, with a washroom at the end of a hall, too far away for him to get to. The nurses were too busy to come to his aid when he needed to use the bathroom. I stayed with him as much as I could over the days he was there but I, too, became exhausted. l will stay home and die rather than ever go back to St Clare’s or the HSC.

These stories are heartbreaking. I know you and your family share them. Friends, we do not need to put up with this. We deserve much better, but nothing will change until we demand it.
When is enough, enough?
Waiting for someone else to fix this is not working. If we want our health care to change, we need to speak up. There are solutions. If you will join me in the fight for better health care, please contact me at mardicollins7@gmail.com.