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LETTERS: Health P.E.I. must consult with physicians and other letters

HEALTH P.E.I. MUST CONSULT WITH PHYSICIANS

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I was dismayed to read the resignation letter from Dr. Heather Austin and especially discouraged by the perfunctory (and factually incorrect) reply from Health P.E.I. How can this organization so casually dismiss the loss of a family physician when more than 35,000 Islanders are already seeking care? Beyond that, how can it fail to address the concerns that Dr. Austin describes in this letter and in two others, written much earlier?

Dr. Austin’s concerns reflect those of her colleagues who were outraged by the lack of discussion when arbitrary and unrealistic expectations for general practice were enacted. These have now been modified but, without consultation, how can Health P.E.I. claim to know their effect on the ground? When Dr. Austin describes a typical day in her working life, I feel exhausted. I could not keep up such a pace.

I am fortunate to have a family doctor. Without the knowledge and care he provides to avert illness and, when necessary, to treat it, I would be a much greater charge on the health service. Beyond that, without my knowledge of his support, I would be anxious about the possibility of illness and stressed by the thought of what it might entail. In short, I would be more vulnerable to infection.

I notice that the letter from Health P.E.I. to Dr. Austin is copied to four people, presumably Health P.E.I. executives. I urge these four, the writer, and whoever else is involved, to sit down with representatives of the community of family physicians to address their concerns and needs with the urgency and care that these deserve.

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SCHOOL DAYS PILING UP IN P.E.I.

Snow days on Prince Edward Island should be rare. Instead, they are becoming routine.

On March 4, schools in Queens and Kings counties closed again after a modest snowfall. Before school was even set to begin, the roads were clearly drivable. Businesses were open. Islanders were commuting to work as usual. Yet thousands of students lost a full day of school.

As a parent, I find this increasingly hard to understand. School closures are not a small inconvenience. When schools shut down, parents scramble to rearrange work schedules, cancel plans or find last-minute childcare. Some simply miss work. Students lose valuable instructional time and the routine that helps them learn.

The problem appears to be how closure decisions are made. If buses cannot safely operate early in the morning, schools close. But that approach treats transportation as the deciding factor for whether learning happens at all. It ignores the many families who can safely drive their children once roads are cleared.

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Schools should not close simply because buses cannot run.

Other options exist. Schools could open while buses are cancelled, allowing families who can drive to still send their children. A one-hour or two-hour delay would also give plows and salt trucks time to clear roads. On many recent snow days, that would have been enough.

To be sure, there are days when travel is genuinely unsafe. No one wants buses on icy roads during severe storms. Those are the days when closures make sense. But those situations should be the exception, not the routine response to normal winter weather.

Prince Edward Island experiences winter every year, snowy conditions should not come as a surprise. Our school system should be built to operate through typical winter conditions.

The Public Schools Branch and the Department of Education should review their policies and make three changes. First, separate bus cancellations from school closures so families who can drive still have the option to attend. Second, use delayed openings more often to allow road crews time to clear routes. Third, reserve full-day closures for truly extreme conditions.

Parents expect schools to prioritize safety. But we also expect them to prioritize learning. Right now, the balance is off.

Snow will always be part of life on P.E.I. Losing unnecessary school days shouldn’t be.

NPs COULD HELP ER WAIT TIMES

I am so sick of what is happening with the shortage of ER health-care workers in Canada right now. It breaks my heart every time I learn another story where someone has suffered because of a person who hasn’t received quality care or who wasn’t helped in time because of the long waits, or staff shortages.

I recently saw in the news the story of a woman named Stacey Ross. Where she waited 11 hours before being admitted to a room. By then it was too late. She passed away two hours later due to cardiac arrest. This is just one example of many people who’ve suffered at the hands of our failing health-care system, and yet nothing seems to be changing. Our emergency rooms are understaffed, yet nothing seems to change. The health-care staff are overworked, which is putting their quality of care at risk.

Something needs to be done to improve this situation before more people suffer or die. There needs to be new systems put in place. Perhaps even adding a nurse practitioner within the ER’s triage department to assess and treat patients of less urgency since one of the main backlogs in the ER is the number of people waiting to be treated for minor ailments because they have no access to a family doctor or walk-in clinic. A nurse practitioner could help manage the care of those patients so that the more urgent patents can been seen more quickly by the ER doctors.

There needs to be a change to improve the wait times and health care within the emergency rooms of our hospitals so there is an end to this life-threatening problem. I can’t stand reading one more article about someone who did not receive proper health care in time. Something needs to be done.

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