Residents riled over province’s plans for Concordia ER

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This article was published 15/05/2019 (1954 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Plans to turn Concordia Hospital’s emergency room into an urgent care centre have further riled area residents who fought to keep the ER open. They say the fight is not over.

“We have not been listened to,” said Claudette Wills, a volunteer and spokeswoman for Save the Concordia ER Coalition.

“We’re going to have a meeting and we’ll make sure they hear us,” the retired teacher and area resident said outside the Winnipeg hospital Thursday.

The coalition volunteers collected more than 8,000 signatures on a petition, lobbied politicians, and held rallies expressing their fears about the Concordia closure. On Thursday, Manitoba Health Minister Cameron Friesen announced the ER would be redeveloped into an urgent care centre within the next two months.

“I’m very disappointed,” said Wills. “Our voices have been dismissed or disregarded or even rejected.”

Manitobans from communities outside the city that rely on Concordia signed the petition, too, said Wills, adding the ER closures in Winnipeg may be more of an election issue for Tory Premier Brian Pallister than he thinks.

“He may expect to sail right on in. I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think there’s an angry wave that exists, and it’s getting bigger.”

Thursday’s announcement does nothing to allay concerns, Wills said.

“It’s little more than a walk-in clinic. It’s for non-life threatening, non-emergency issues,” she said. “If it’s more serious, then people are still going to have to travel out to St. B (St. Boniface Hospital).

“That’s been one of the big comments that people have said. They don’t want to have to do that if Concordia (ER) is in our community.”

“I think it’s terrible,” said John McPhee, who was at Concordia Thursday to visit his wife, who arrived at the emergency department several days ago after being transferred from St. Boniface ER because it was full.

“They said they didn’t have enough beds.”

The St. Vital resident — visiting Concordia with his daughter, Cristie DaSilva — said his wife is in intensive care with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart problems and on life support. She was transferred back to St. Boniface for the heart issues then transferred again to Concordia, he said.

McPhee said the moves were stressful “big time” for the family: “I’m still stressed out.”

He believes the Concordia ER will be an election issue for the Conservative government. “I think so — I hope so.”

 

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca