Hospital closures reason to be ‘Brassed Off’
New Waterford is my home town. I am proud to say that. Our town history shows that the first hospital in New Waterford was a company house funded by coal miners. Many of the town doctors were paid by miners to do house calls. (Canada’s first health care system?)
As our town population exploded the original hospital was unable to handle the influx of immigrant families from all over the world. So, the miners funded new hospital construction and upkeep – including the New Waterford Consolidated Hospital (NWCH) recently slated for closure. The miners contributed to the hospitals through a check-off system an agreed amount deducted from their paycheques each week to be directed to the hospital fund. My father and I were two of those thousands of contributing miners. Northside and Glace Bay miners had the same system for their hospitals.
The mines and miners are, for the most part, gone and now so are the hospitals. Coincidence? Not really. Predictable? Absolutely. The same thing happened in the United Kingdom coal mining communities when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher shut down the British Coal Corporation in 1997. The harsh reality of post coal life in a U.K. industrial community is depicted in a movie called “Brassed Off.” It’s well worth watching.
Industrial Cape Breton’s former coal mining communities are an eerie mirror image of the U.K. experience - mass outmigration, social decay, school, church, hospital and business closures followed by political platitudes - from scripted talking points - that our future is so bright we gotta’ wear shades. It’s safe to say that the jury is still out on our real future prospects.
Some of you may recall that before the miners sent him to Ottawa, for the fourth time, to sit at the big table in 1993, David Dingwall railed against the degradation of our communities during the ACOA debates of the 1980s. Government studies had projected that Cape Breton would bleed more than 900 people a year for the foreseeable future due to outmigration. Dingwall made comments, on the public record, that loss of the coal industry could only make matters worse. Then, in the 1990s, his government shut down the coal industry and here we are - Brassed Off.
I bring this bit of history to your attention in relation to my attendance at the health care show (sans popcorn) at the Big Fiddle in Sydney last week. I noted, with some amusement, that I was not blessed with an opportunity to ask a question about the millions of dollars spent on the NWCH for two stateof-the-art digital x-ray rooms, a new sprinkler system and a new ventilation system. Collateral damage I suppose.
The spin put on the two hospital closures reminded me of the health care crisis during the 1990s in Nova Scotia.
Letter continues on page A11