LETTER

LETTRE

 New Hospital: what's in it for us?

 

In all the letters published by the Aylmer Bulletin on the new regional hospital,  everyone seems only to be pulling the blanket to their side of the bed .... what I would like to see from the government is more discussion about the whole re-arrangement of health services in our region.  For example, if the hospital goes just below Chelsea, how will that affect services in existing hospitals, like Shawville's, which has lost services steadily since the Liberal Party of Quebec brought in the cuts and centralization?  Wakefield's old facility will become an old-age centre of some sort -- but what?  And in Shawville's birthing facility, lost several years ago due to a shortage of nurses, so we're told, will pregnant women soon have to travel even further? How is that an improvement, Mr Bussieres?   
    And what about that very question of staffing shortages?  Great to have a new bricks-and-glass building, but where will the staff come from?  Will they be pulled from outlying CLSCs or even the remaining small hospitals?   That's probably the stupidest decision, so we can hope for better -- but where will they come from, and how will foreign-trained people even know about Gatineau's opportunities? How will their accreditations be speeded-up?
    How about real information, not just campaign-style announcements?  
Andy Black
Aylmer nord