Cape Bretoners concerned about losing their hospitals get some reassurance

Cape Bretoners concerned about the pending loss of two hospitals received some reassurance on Friday.

JanetKnox, the CEO of the Nova Scotia Health Authority, said residents whose communities will lose their hospitals will not lose the services they enjoy now.

Premier Stephen McNeil announced on Monday that the Northside General Hospital in North Sydney and the New Waterford Consolidated Hospital will close.

Knox, a guest on CBC Cape Breton's Information MorningonFriday,stressed that no hospitals will be closed until alternative services are in place.

Transformation of approach

"Nothing changes until we have the new thing," she said. "There was an assumption, that because the word(s) 'The hospital is closing' are used, that it's closing. No.

"We are transforming our way of service delivery, and when we have the new approach, the old one can be celebrated and we can replace it."

The hospitals will be replaced with community health centres, twonew long-term care facilities with an additional 50 beds, and expanded operating room, emergency and cancer-careservices in the regional andGlace Bay hospitals.

Knox said the decision to close the hospitals was made in just the last couple of monthsafter assessments of the buildings showed that they can't be renovated to meet today's standards.

When the message came back that the buildings couldn't be renovated, "that's when another decision had to be made," Knox said.

"And so that's why the buildings are being replaced, because we can't renovate a 1954 and a 1963 building. That was the change in the plan."

Nothing sudden

Many people affected by the closure announcement, including health-care workers, were shocked and dismayed that they had no warning of the changes.

Knox conceded that the announcement took people by surprise, but said public consultations are in the works.

"The next nine-to-12 months is a functioning, planning exercise to talk about the services and what they need to be and where they need to be, and how we staff them," she said.

"Then we go into a design phase to build buildings that will replace some of the buildings. We have a couple of years to be talking about the model of service."

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