Williams Lake and area residents are invited to attend a Health Care Rally in early August.
This month, the Cariboo Memorial Hospital’s emergency room has had 10 temporary closures, which has created more vocal responses from the community.
MLA, Lorne Doerkson says he has seen an increasing number of letters and engagements with the public.
“We’ve shared those thoughts of what have been some very serious situations in our community.” says Doerkson.
“At the end of the day I decided on the weekend that it was time to try and bring the community together just to convey to Interior Health, Minister Dix, and certainly Premier Eby, just how serious the community feels about the situation at Cariboo Memorial.”
While a lot of frustrations and concerns have been brought forward, Doerkson says that he has also heard positive service at the hospital.
After speaking with some nurses, he says they feel horrible for not being able to provide the care they’d like to, because they’re overwhelmed.
He added that his heart goes out to those who are working in that environment where they’re unable to openly share their thoughts, and potential solutions without some sort of warning that they’re unable to talk about the situation.
Doerkson says these closures have resulted in situations that have been fairly serious in the community.
He says this rally isn’t meant to be an attack on healthcare workers, rather an attack on a system seeming to be challenged almost everyday.
On top of that, Doerkson wants to better understand what’s happening with the system, and the plan going forward, as it’s unclear.
The Health Care Rally will be on August 2nd at Boitanio Park, starting at 5:30pm.
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