'This is pretty dirty pool': Roblin losing diagnostic services, residents worry ER will close

Some people in Roblin are worried about the future of their community's emergency room after getting newstheir health centre's lab technicians will berelocated.

Roblin town councillors were told this past week that all the lab technicians will be sent 50 kilometres south to Russell because there is a shortage of staff there.

Manitoba Shared Health said in an email to the CBC that the move is a temporary measure while they work to recruit more staff.

"I just feel like we've been taken off the map. It's not as though I want Russell not to have a lab. My intent is to save ours," said Jana Knight, a business owner in Roblin.

"We have hospitals and we have doctors. Why are you taking those services away from us?"

The community was told by Prairie Mountain Health, the authority that oversees the region,that blood and electrocardiogram services will remain in Roblin, but it will lose its lab technicians and X-ray services.

"You can no longer have acute care," Knight said about the losses.

"We have four doctors in Roblin, who we've worked very hard as a community to get. We ralliedtogether for years to try to secure doctors in our community but of course, we're not going to keep them if we don't have an emergency room.

"So this is very devastating, even more so that we were only given five business days to deal with this news."

Word came from the health authority on Aug. 21 that the lab would be shut down on Sept. 1, Knight said.

"We always thought we'd lose our ER because we didn't have doctors, not because Prairie Mountain Health would take our lab people away," Knight said.

"This is pretty dirty pool."

Prairie Mountain Health deferred comment to the provincial government andShared Health, which is responsible for diagnostic services in Manitoba.

Shared Health confirmed the closure in an emailed statement that says it is necessary due to "a number of staff vacancies throughout the geographic area" caused by retirements, resignations and maternity leaves.

Recruitment to fill vacancies throughout the area is ongoing, beginning in Russell, the statement said.

"Every effort is being made to maintain as much service as possible while the recruitment process is underway. Consolidating diagnostics temporarily in Russell will ensure predictable and reliable services continue to be provided in the wider geographic area," the email said.

Knight saidthere is no public transportation linking the two communitiesand eliminating the lab in Roblin will be difficult for seniors.

"This is very distressing," she said. "And we have a large Mtis population that lives north of our town, which is even more difficult for them to reach health services."

Roblin, whichhas a population of about 1,600 people,is 330 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.

Russell, with a population of about 1,300, is straight south of Roblinon Highway 83.

"A 30-minute drive doesn't sound like a lot. Lots of people have to travel 30 minutes to see a doctor in the city," Knight said.

"But 30 minutes of highway driving and 30 minutes of catching a bus or an Uber or a taxi in the city is a lot different. The handi-van is not going to run seniors here back and forth between their appointments."

The Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals blames the provincial government for creating the situation facing Roblin and Russell.

"This closure is the direct result of a failure to invest in rural health care. It's the culmination of a failed strategy to ignore and cut, and now their answer is to cut even more services," president Bob Morozsaid in an email.

"It's sad to see another community lose diagnostic services, when this was entirely avoidable."

The union is worried thetemporary closure in Roblincould become permanent, "as has happened with other rural health-care services," Moroz said.

"Furthermore, the Manitoba government has already signalled that we can expect consolidation in rural health-care services, as we have seen in Winnipeg in recent years, with significant impacts to services and accessibility."