Darrell Mesheau died in the early morning hours of July 12, 2022 after sitting for almost seven hours in the waiting room at the Dr. Everett Chalmers hospital emergency department in Fredericton.
Resident, retired surgeon and member of the Waikato DHB’s Community and Public Health Advisory Committee, Paul Malpass, said while he was anticipating the changes, he still had concerns. “There was talk about reducing the number of DHBs and creating a Maori Health authority … and a lot of care nearer to home, community care and bringing care to the people.
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Taumarunui Community Kokiri Trust CEO Christine Brears: “Let us strengthen and develop, so our communities are being delivered a service that is equal to that of an urban centre.” “I have to say we have been saying that for some time in Taumarunui. I am a bit concerned for the rural community in the sense Taumarunui township is 160km from Waikato (Hospital), so secondary services, tertiary services, are that far away and for some people even further … by and large it’s a poor community and access is a major issue for us.”
(Excludes 3 active cases not in public health follow up within the province)
The number of active cases does not include the current 46 presumptive confirmed cases which are still being confirmed by the provincial laboratory. Even though my previous report showed 1 person in hospital, that person had been released, the 2 people now hospitalized are two new cases that had to be admitted due to their symptoms.
Anyone reading this might wonder how things could change so drastically, and I have the answer for you; somehow a case of the UK variant B117 was introduced into our province and it has rapidly spread. We now have thousands of people in self-isolation, including over 500 healthcare workers as well as over 50 firefighters also in insolation. Now you have to understand that even though the province itself is large in physical size, our population numbers are quite low. In 2020, the estimated population of Newfoundland and Labrador was 522,103 people; so to have that many of our p