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Caraquet health centre to regain hospital status
Last Updated: Thursday, February 7, 2008 | 3:26 PM AT
CBC News
The health centre in Caraquet, N.B., will once again be classified as a hospital, Health Minister Mike Murphy said Thursday.
In 2005, the town's francophone hospital was downgraded to a community health centre — with no emergency room and only limited hours of operation. The change was protested by the small community of 4,500 in the province's northeast.
The provincial government is now investing $5.6 million into health care on the Acadian Peninsula.
With that new money, Caraquet's centre will be upgraded to a facility with eight beds, 24-hour service and a walk-in clinic. The change will allow it to regain its hospital status, Murphy said. The annual cost of operating the facility is expected to be $1.3 million.
"This is an exception to the rule," Murphy told CBC News. "The rule being that we are going towards more and more community health centers. But there's extraordinary circumstances here of geography and winter storms and the fact that it's not very close to a regional hospital."
Patients forced to drive 65 km for ER treatment
When the Caraquet facility was downgraded to a health centre, its emergency room was dismantled, and patients seeking emergency treatment had to drive 65 kilometres southwest to Bathurst.
Cont
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2008/02/07/caraquet-hospital.html
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