Health-cuts reversal isn't political: minister
Last Updated: Friday, October 2, 2009 | 5:24 PM NT
CBC News
Health Minister Paul Oram backed down on a decision to reduce the hours the Flower's Cove health clinic could stay open. (CBC)Provincial Health Minister Paul Oram denied Friday that reversing plans to cut health services in Flower's Cove, N.L., has anything to do with a coming byelection in the area.
The health clinic in the Northern Peninsula town was facing a cut in its hours to 12 hours a day from 24.
But Oram reversed the decision Thursday, the same day Trevor Taylor's resignation took effect as the district's member of the house of assembly.
Taylor announced last week he was leaving politics after representing Straits-White Bay North since January 2001.
No date has been set for a byelection.
Oram said the decision to keep the Flower's Cove clinic open 24 hours a day has nothing to do with winning an election.
"They may say that, but you know the fact is they were asking for this," he said. "The people were asking for this. And we had a look at this, and we feel it's the right thing to do. It's not political.
"Government has to look at things. When we make decisions there's lots of times we want to take a second look."
Plans to cut X-ray and lab services in Flower's Cove and in the central Newfoundland town of Lewisporte are still going ahead.
Art Elliott, the chairman of a committee fighting the cuts in Lewisporte, said he's not happy the minister is backing down on some cuts in Flower's Cove but not in his town.
