After a fairly quiet period on Social media over the last few weeks, North Coast MLA Jennifer Rice used her online platform to relay another Provincial program roll out this week.
This one related to Health Care and a new and hopefully improved way to match up doctors with the would be patients seeking them.
As the MLA outlines it, the new program will streamline the process of connecting doctors and Nurse practitioners who have space in their practice with the patients that are looking for primary health care.
However, as the Parliamentary Secretary for Rural Health does note, the new rollout won't fix the largest issue of the moment for health care; that being the lack of doctors available for the matchmaking, a situation particularly concerning in her constituency at the moment.
With a current doctor shortage in Prince Rupert only set to get worse this spring and summer before reinforcements eventually arrive, local residents will be in health care purgatory for a bit longer yet for the new and improved service to be of some use.
That brings an extra load on at the PRRH Emergency Department where waits in the lobby for those looking to see a doctor now are getting longer as residents seek out services of whatever doctor they can find on any given day.
Northern Health didn't offer up much help on the roll out for Ms. Rice yesterday, four hours after the MLA's update ... the Health Authority had one of their own, announcing once again that the Prince Rupert Regional Hospital would be closed overnight, that owing to the lack of physician coverage.
That closure which lasted until 8 AM this morning, was just the latest in what has been a string of mostly overnight closures through March and now into April.
When it comes to filling that physician coverage challenge, maybe Northern Health could make use of the new online program ...
More notes on Health Care in Prince Rupert can be reviewed through our archive page.
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