{"id":175885,"date":"2025-09-28T18:03:37","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T18:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/175885\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T18:03:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T18:03:37","slug":"after-years-of-staff-shortages-wakeham-asks-voters-to-trust-his-plan-to-fix-rural-health-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/175885\/","title":{"rendered":"After years of staff shortages, Wakeham asks voters to trust his plan to fix rural health care"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TwoProgressive Conservative Leader Tony Wakeham, left, spoke with supporters outside the empty, unused community medical centre in Lewisporte on Monday. (Darrell Roberts\/CBC)<\/p>\n

As the second week of Newfoundland and Labrador’s provincial election campaign began, about 30 people gathered to watch Progressive Conservative Leader Tony Wakeham speak about health care in front of a vacant, unused private clinic near the Lewisporte Health Centre.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Wakeham, the owner of the building bought the land from the region’s former health authority, Central Health, but hasn’t been able to staff the clinic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wakeham blamed the Liberal government.<\/p>\n

“Why did this building never open? Why did it never provide the services it was built for? That’s a question that we need answered,” he said.<\/p>\n

Reporters were permitted to accompany Wakeham on his tour of the facility, which has a waiting room, offices and several examination rooms outfitted with equipment.<\/p>\n

Despite using the building as a backdrop, and committing to improving health care in the area, Wakeham stopped short of committing to staffing that particular clinic if he forms government.<\/p>\n

WATCH | Wakeham kicks off Week 2 of his campaign in Lewisporte: \"\"<\/p>\n

PCs kick off Week 2 of provincial election campaign with health-care promises<\/p>\n

PC Leader Tony Wakeham visited Lewisporte on Monday where he talked about bolstering several health-related services. The CBC\u2019s Henrike Wilhelm reports.<\/p>\n

“If this building can be a part of that solution, then I’m certainly willing to look at it,” he said.<\/p>\n

The owner of the clinic declined an interview request.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wakeham promises to recruit, retain health-care staff<\/p>\n

CBC News has asked Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services why the clinic hasn’t been staffed. A spokesperson said the health authority is working on a response.<\/p>\n

During his time on the campaign trail, Wakeham has acknowledged that health-care recruitment and retention has been a challenge in rural Newfoundland and Labrador in recent years, but projected confidence that his government would turn the tide.<\/p>\n

\"AnThe vacant community medical centre in Lewisporte features exam rooms with medical equipment \u2014 but according to Wakeham, the facility has never been used. (Darrell Roberts\/CBC)<\/p>\n

“Under a Wakeham government, patients must have the option to see a health-care provider in person,” he pledged on Monday.<\/p>\n

To become the province’s next premier, Wakeham is banking on voters to trust in his ability to follow through on that promise.<\/p>\n

Kim Moyles, a supporter who showed up to hear Wakeham speak in Lewisporte, said she believes what he’s saying.<\/p>\n

“I honestly think he has a plan in place. You know, he gave a little bit of detail as to what that plan was and I’m sure there will be more elaboration as we need it,” she said.<\/p>\n

Moyles said she doesn’t have a family doctor, and she uses virtual tools like Medicuro and Patient Connect for appointments and prescriptions.<\/p>\n

\"AKim Moyles, a Lewisporte resident, said health care in her area is in a ‘desperate state.’ (Darrell Roberts\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Mark Butt, the PC candidate for Lewisporte-Twillingate, said health care is the number one issue he’s hearing about from voters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And he had some surprising words about the district’s Liberal incumbent Derek Bennett.<\/p>\n

“He’s doing a fabulous job. I can’t knock the gentleman, he’s done what he could,” Butt said. “It’s not so much Derek himself, it’s the Liberal Party that’s let people down in this provinceProvincial government recruitment and retention initiatives have not been enough to stem a tide of health-care worker shortages across rural Newfoundland and Labrador. Emergency rooms have closed,<\/a> sometimes replaced by virtual health care. According to the province’s medical association, over 163,000 residents don’t have a family doctor.<\/a><\/p>\n

Wakeham has also committed to doubling the size of Memorial University’s nurse practitioner program, adding 50 seats to the nursing school and providing tax credits to students who decide to stay in the province.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So far, Wakeham’s health-care promises would total $46 million in public spending.<\/p>\n

When asked how he would pay for those initiatives, Wakeham points to what he calls wasted Liberal tax money.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Download our\u00a0free CBC News app<\/a>\u00a0to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our\u00a0daily headlines newsletter here<\/a>. Click\u00a0here to visit our landing page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Progressive Conservative Leader Tony Wakeham, left, spoke with supporters outside the empty, unused community medical centre in Lewisporte…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-175885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}