Emergency department closure focus of public meeting

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This article was published 04/07/2022 (1331 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Residents of Melita and the Municipality of Two Borders are meeting with health officials on Tuesday to let their voices be heard over the local hospital’s emergency department closing for most of the summer.

The meeting is taking place at 7 p.m. at the Legion Hall and all are invited, said Melita deputy mayor Brian Teetaert. Prairie Mountain Health CEO Brian Schoonbaert and a representative for Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Doyle Piwniuk are scheduled to be there.

PMH recently announced emergency department closures and reduced hours at several health centres across the regional health authority. Among them is Melita, which has had its emergency department and hospital admissions temporarily suspended.

At the time, the announcement stated the changes were needed due to a number of factors, including vacancies, staff leaves and vacations, and had been discussed with physician leadership and staff at the affected sites as well as with key community stakeholders. The feedback generated during these meetings made it clear that access to consistent, reliable and known emergency department services is a priority, the notice stated.

Rotating staff shortages and closures have been going on for a while, Teetaert said. There was a meeting last week with Schoonbaert, Teetaert and other town representatives over their staffing. At the time, Schoonbaert said their health centre’s staffing levels were among the best in the region, then informed them they were moving their staff to other facilities and closing the emergency department for two months.

“We were blindsided by this news. We were not asked, we were told this was happening,” Teetaert said. “It really doesn’t add up. What is the problem with the staffing in the other facilities — they are going to close one to cover another?”

He added he understood it’s an essential service and staffing issues have been ongoing around the province due to the pandemic, but was confused by the reasoning.

This is not the first time Melita has been hit with closures, Teetaert said. Around Christmas, town officials had a Zoom meeting with Schoonbaert regarding ongoing closures. At the time, they had been told there was a shortage of nurses and the emergency department would be closed for a few dates., which Teetaert said he understood considering it was during another wave of COVID-19 and a busy time for health care.

Melita is relatively isolated, Teetaert said, and sits near Manitoba’s borders with Saskatchewan and North Dakota.

Having their emergency department close is going to be at a minimum a serious inconvenience and at most a potential threat to the health of the region.

“The next nearest emergency department is two hours away,” Teebart said. “We can’t go to Saskatchewan because it is a different jurisdiction, and we can’t go south. These borders aren’t really walls, but in a case like this, they feel like it.”

What he is hoping to get out of the meeting is a clearer understanding of why the emergency department is being closed for so long. The town can manage with no emergency department for two months, he said, but something has to change soon in the way staffing is managed.

“We can’t keep closing our emergency department,” he said. “We can plod along for a while, but we need health care.”

» kmckinley@brandonsun.com, with Brandon Sun files

» Twitter: @karenleighmcki1