Municipal councillors in Guysborough have heard from representatives with EHS.
They requested a meeting in November.
That’s when Janet Peitzsche, the municipality’s deputy warden, told them a patient’s appendix ruptured as they waited seven hours for transport from Eastern Memorial Hospital in Canso to St. Martha’s Regional Hospital in Antigonish.
Derek Leblanc and Phil Stewart addressed a number of topics via Zoom at January’s regular municipal council meeting Wednesday afternoon.
After the meeting, Vernon Pitts, Guysborough’s warden, said it blew him away there are no minimum response times.
“What it comes right down to is we’re playing Russian roulette,” he said. “The gun is going to go off one of these times.”
Stewart told councillors there were too many complexities involved to commit to a number.
He also said EHS officials don’t recommend people take someone to hospital themselves during an emergency.
Pitts said the two don’t add up, especially after the story they heard involving the patient waiting in Canso.
“That is totally unacceptable, yet they turn around and, if an individual is in dire distress or whatever, they do not want you transporting that individual to the hospital on your own?” he said. “What other alternative do you have- call Heaven?”
Pitts said taxpayers are getting substandard service, and they’re not satisfied with what they heard.
He said their next step is to take their concerns to their provincial counterparts.
Councillors voted to send a letter to the province’s health minister and provincial officials to step in after Wednesday’s presentation.
