The Bonavista E.R. keeps closing. Every week, these residents rally against their 'nightmare'
CBC
The sound of honking filled the air near the Bonavista hospital at lunchtime on Wednesday.
About 10 Bonavista residents, braving the freezing rain, marched down the road holding signs displaying slogans like "Honk for hospital," and "We stand together."
Jessie Brown said the current state of health care in Bonavista is "a nightmare."
"It's an awful feeling," she said. "I mean, I've lived here all my life and I've never seen it like this, where you had your hospital closed."
Residents have been regularly protesting since last summer, when the town's emergency department began periodically closing.
The emergency room at the Bonavista hospital, which serves about 8,000 people in the community and the surrounding area, reopened Wednesday after a week-long closure, but not for long. The emergency room is scheduled to close again on Saturday.
When the emergency room in Bonavista shuts down, anyone who experiences a medical emergency has to drive to Clarenville — an extra 90 minutes of driving time, and that's when conditions are good. Other services, like dialysis and chemotherapy, also shut down when no doctor or nurse practitioner is available to operate them.
Brown said she worries about her 80-year-old mother.
"It's just the two of us," she said. "It's scary. Like, if she gets a cold I'm afraid."
Brown has considered leaving the community where she's lived her whole life.
"I really don't think I'm gonna stay if things don't get better. It's too stressful."
Joshua Kane, who also grew up in Bonavista, attends the protests on his lunch break every Wednesday. He said the impact of rolling closures is heartbreaking to witness.
"I find it really hard for our community when we got to stand here and fight for our hospital — it's not good."
Gail Brown, a Bonavista health-care advocate, is one of the organizers behind the weekly protests.