Premier ends health blitz in Cape Breton with byelection call
Details of new school, community health centre for New Waterford among announcements
Premier Stephen McNeil launched a byelection blitz of industrial Cape Breton Friday.
He made government announcements in four different communities ahead of the official start of three byelections, votes he called less than an hour after his last scheduled event.
The recent resignations of three PC MLAs, two in Cape Breton and the other in southwest Nova Scotia, have triggered the need for the byelections, which McNeil promised to call "immediately" after their resignations. The resignations were effective July 31.
Voters in Northside-Westmount, Sydney River-Mira-Louisbourg and Argyle-Barrington will vote on Sept. 3.
Health care front and centre
Health and long-term care were to the focus of three of of the four Cape Breton announcements.
They include building a new community health centre, school and nursing home on the same site in New Waterford, the construction of another combined community health centre and nursing home, along with an adjacent laundry facility, in North Sydney, and the commitment to fund the estimated $1.75-million annual operating costs of a hospice being planned for Membertou.
New Waterford plans
The campus in New Waterford, is designed to fit on the land currently occupied by the Breton Education Centre.
The new facilities there are needed to replace the aging New Waterford Consolidated Hospital, which the government has said needs to be closed, and the Breton Education Centre. The school is almost 50 years old.
There will be 60 long-term care beds in the nursing home, which will be housed in the same building as the clinic. The school will be located in its own building with a public area located between the two structures.
Although the replacement plans have been in the works for months, the details have been kept a close secret until now.
McNeil called the community hub model "exciting and innovative" during one of four news conferences planned for Friday.
"It will also provide more exposure to health-care career options for students and create better connections between seniors in long-term care and their community," he said.
The centre is expected to provide the following services:
- Space for family doctors' offices and collaborative care teams.
- After-hours clinic for booked appointments.
- Counselling, wellness clinics.
- Diagnostic imaging, including X-rays and ultrasounds.
- Blood collection.
- Cardiac, EKG.
- Twelve short-stay beds for people who need to be kept under observation for less than 72 hours.
The provincial government has said it would be looking for a private company to design and build the heath component of this project.
The government's decision to close two hospitals in Cape Breton was met with anger and fear when it was announced last year but Kevin Orrell, senior medical director for the redevelopment, said that has changed.
"[The] general population has become more educated about what it means and they've become much more receptive," he said. "So, I think some of the fear of change has dissipated a bit as people come to understand what exactly will be offered."
North Sydney plans
The North Sydney facilities will be located together in the Northside Business Park.
The North Sydney health centre will include,
- Blood collection services.
- Cardiac, EKG clinic.
- Cancer screening.
- Chronic pain management.
- Endoscopy.
- 12-seat dialysis unit
- 12 short-stay beds
The long-term care home will be home to 60 residents. The state of the art laundry facility will provide service to all the health facilities in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.
Construction for the New Waterford and North Sydney buildings is expected to start in the fall of 2020.
Palliative care announcement
Earlier Friday, McNeil announced the provincial government would fund the operating expenses of a planned 10-bed hospice being planned for the Cape Breton region.
A non-profit group, the Palliative Care Society of Cape Breton County, has been lobbying years for the creation of a standalone facility to provide end-of-life care.
That kind of care is currently being offered in a nine-bed unit located at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital.
McNeil acknowledged the group's patience at the announcement.
"I can tell you I've heard about this since 2013," he said. "It's not that we weren't listening, it really wasn't that we weren't listening, we wanted to make sure that we could get this right."
The province will provide the hospice with roughly $1.75 million a year for operating costs once it is built and staffed.
The hospice society has raised more than $3.2 million toward its $5.2-million goal to fund construction of the facility that will be built in Membertou.
The Indigenous community is providing the site for the hospice through a low-cost, long-term lease.
Sometimes announcements are prohibited
Government announcements, like the ones Friday, are generally forbidden during general elections or byelections.
Communications Nova Scotia, the government's communications arm, says: "Restrictions on government announcements during byelection periods apply to the geographic boundaries of the electoral district within which the byelection is being held."
"During a byelection, government communications (e.g. announcements) and advertising are prohibited in the by-election district."
There are exceptions but none would apply to Friday's announcements.
Had the premier called the byelections first thing Friday morning, the policy would have prevented the government from two of its announcements, the one in North Sydney and the one involving the hospice in Membertou.
PC Leader Tim Houston said he wasn't impressed with the premier's announcements on Friday.
"It is kind of [a] very old school political move to come into town with some announcements obviously in the hope that you change voters' minds," he said. "And that's unfortunate when that type of politicking happens, but the byelections will allow people to have their say."
The NDP's Gary Burrill concurred.
"This is the crassest kind of old-style politics," he said. "It is the kind of politics that has caused so much disillusionment with political leadership and government.
"I have every confidence that the people of Cape Breton, who have endured such a continuing crisis in health care, are going to be able to see through it and see it for what it is."
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