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class="content__text" Natasha Russell's two-year-old daughter, Scarlett, wouldn't wake up on Boxing Day morning. She had been sick for a few days. Now Russell couldn't get the toddler to stop sleeping. Scarlett needed urgent medical attention, but their local emergency room in Bonavista, Nfld., was closed due to staff shortages. "I was scared. I was crying. My husband had to calm me down," Russell said. The family took Scarlett to the hospital in Clarenville, an hour and a half away. A chest X-ray showed Scarlett had pneumonia in her right lung. She also tested positive for influenza A. "They told me if I didn't bring her in … she basically could have died in her sleep. That's how bad she was. That's how severe she was," Russell said. The emergency room at the Bonavista Peninsula Health Centre, which serves more than 3,000 people in the town and thousands of others in the surrounding communities, closed multiple times over the holidays. Those closures have stretched into 2023. The emergency room has shut down multiple times this month and is scheduled to close again Friday until at least Tuesday. On Monday, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey announced the province would accept a new health-care proposal from the federal government. The deal includes an immediate $27-million cash injection to help alleviate pressure on emergency rooms, pediatric hospitals, and surgical and diagnostic backlogs. But Furey, who maintains his licence as an orthopedic surgeon, said the extra funds won't solve the complex challenges of delivering rural health care. "If it was just money, money would have fixed this a long time ago," he said. (Reporting: Darrell Roberts/CBC News; Photo: Submitted by Natasha Russell) #Bonavista #Newfoundland #Health #HealthCare #Medicine #Canada #CBC #CBCNews

February 16, 2023