Wanting to be heard
Annapolis MLA ready to present petition to government
Carman Kerr hopes to present a petition with more than 5,500 signatures in the legislature this week.
The Annapolis MLA started the petition in early January. It requests government develop a comprehensive targeted plan to return the emergency department at Soldiers Memorial Hospital in Middleton to 24 hours a day, seven days a week service. It also requests quarterly public information sessions in the community to update residents on the progress towards the plan.
“I am hoping it raises alarm with government and gets their attention,” Kerr said in a March 20 interview.
“We’re already struggling with the highest unattached rates in the province,” he said, noting emergency care was removed from the Annapolis Community Health Centre in Annapolis Royal and there’s been steady closures in Middleton. “I don’t know what the government expects our residents to do.”
Soldiers Memorial Hospital’s emergency department is scheduled to be open from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. daily. But due to staffing shortages there have been many closures this year.
Nova Scotia Health officials said they were committed to restoring emergency care in Middleton to 24 hours a day, seven days a week during a public information session in February.
The number of signatures on the petition was a good representation of how concerned the community is, Kerr said, noting Annapolis County has a population of about 20,000.
“So many people took time out of their day to make the effort (to sign the petition). It’s not easy to do a handwritten petition with close to 6,000 names,” he said. “What it says is so many people are wanting to be part of the solution and want to be heard.”
The petition was in libraries and businesses throughout the county. Some residents took the petition and went door-to-door in their neighbourhood gathering signatures.
Annapolis Royal resident Bill MacDonald took one of the petitions every Wednesday morning to the Sissiboo coffee shop in town. He collected 144 signatures.
“People were anxious to sign it and people are concerned,” MacDonald said. “They offered their own examples of circumstances they found themselves (or their family) in.”
Kerr, a Liberal MLA, said the Middleton hospital also impacts the two ridings to the east and west of him in Kings West and Digby-Annapolis.
Kerr said he has talked with business owners who are concerned with how they are going to recruit staff to the region without consistent emergency care coverage in the county.
When the department is closed, it leaves no emergency room within Annapolis County borders, forcing residents to travel to Kentville or Digby, which are 50 and 80 kilometres away from Middleton, respectively.
The Digby emergency department has also faced closures. When it is closed at the same time as Middleton, it leaves no emergency department open between Yarmouth and Kentville – a distance of 225 kilometres.
“The keystone for us in health care, especially emergency services in Annapolis Royal, is having Middleton operate as a 24-7 emergency centre,” MacDonald.