Opposition is growing to the province's decision to cut X-ray and lab services in two Newfoundland communities, including from one family doctor who is thinking of leaving Lewisporte because she says the cuts will make it more difficult to treat people.

Health Minister Paul Oram said Monday that cutting service in Lewisporte in central Newfoundland and Flower's Cove on the Northern Peninsula isn't a reduction in service. Instead, he said, consolidation is the best way to improve the system.

Dr. Brenda Penney, who was born and raised in Lewisporte, is pleading with Oram to reconsider.

"I'm seriously going to think about moving elsewhere because I feel that I cannot do a proper service to my patients if I'm losing my facilities that I already have in place," she said

The government's decision to move X-ray and lab services came totally out of the blue, according to Penney. Late Monday night, she was shocked to get a call from her MHA with the news without warning or consultation.

Penney said the clinic is vital to the health of the people in the Lewisporte area who will now have to travel to Grand Falls-Windsor or Gander.

Longer waits for diagnosis

Without it, she said, patients will have extra travel time and costs, but most importantly, it will take longer to get a diagnosis.

"We do trauma patients all the time, and we read our own X-rays here before they're read in Grand Falls and we treat them on scene," she said

Penney called the employees in both facilities and said they had no clue this announcement was coming. She said she questions if the health minister realizes how valuable the clinic is to the people who depend on it.

Provincial NDP Leader Lorraine Michael said Tuesday she is disturbed that people in Lewisporte weren't consulted before the decision was made.

"Communities should be involved with the government in the decision-making, and obviously, that hasn't happened. To hear the mayor of a town being on the radio being quite upset and not knowing where this came from, that should never happen," she said.

Michael also is questioning why decisions about the two clinics were made while a review by the health department of lab and X-ray services is still ongoing. She said the government should have held off until the review is complete so people could understand the bigger picture of the province's plans.

'Pretty insensitive'

In the meantime, NAPE president Carol Furlong said she isn't is happy with the way the province announce the cuts.

The province's largest public sector union represents six employees in Lewisporte, and several more in Flower's Cove.

Furlong said many of them found out their jobs would be affected only by listening to CBC News.

"The mechanism that was used to relay this information to the employees was pretty insensitive. We've had one person in Flower's Cove who went to work this morning and was told by a co-worker his job was gone. You know, we don't need that kind of atmosphere in the workplace because we don't know that that's the case," she said.

Furlong said it's unfair that the workers still don't know if they'll have jobs elsewhere, or when their work will finish up.