![\"Text](\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\")
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Listen to this article<\/p>\n
Estimated 5 minutes<\/p>\n
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n
About 125 people came out for a town hall meeting on health care in Charlottetown Monday night.<\/p>\n
At the Liberal-sponsored event, Health and Wellness Minister Cory Deagle made two major health-care announcements.<\/p>\n
Deagle told the crowd the province is set to announce that it is adding 200 private long-term care beds. That will cost about $100 million.<\/p>\n
Deagle said that should help free up badly needed hospital beds that are currently tied up with people who are not sick, but are waiting for a long-term care bed.<\/p>\n
Those beds should be ready in the next 18 to 24 months, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe private sector can move much faster than government can,\u201d said Deagle.<\/p>\n
The meeting, which organizers moved to a larger venue that could hold up to 450 people, was held at a time when health care on the Island is facing significant upheaval.<\/p>\n
Last week, Melanie Fraser left her role as CEO of Health P.E.I.<\/a>, and Laurae Kloschinsky was appointed interim CEO<\/a>. The leadership shakeup followed a letter signed by 93 family doctors sent to the premier and health minister, saying they’d lost confidence in Fraser’s leadership. <\/p>\n \u2018Start booking the damn things\u2019<\/p>\n Deagle also confirmed that the private cataract clinic in Charlottetown has cancelled all of its appointments for the month of March because it has run out of money. CBC News reached out to the clinic last week but hasn’t received a response. Health P.E.I. said it was looking into it. <\/p>\n The clinic is private but funded by the provincial government. The new provincial budget doesn\u2019t start until April 1.<\/p>\n Deagle called the situation \u201cridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Are you kidding me? \u2026 Well, start booking the damn things\u2019 because there\u2019s no reason that you should have to wait when we have operating rooms sitting empty,\u201d Deagle told a woman whose loved one has been waiting months for surgery.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, I\u2019ve told them to start booking again \u2026 We\u2019ll try and maybe get you in early April because you shouldn\u2019t have to wait that long.\u201d<\/p>\n Political interference concerns<\/p>\n Deagle\u2019s comments drew an immediate reaction from the crowd, with some attendees calling out, \u201cthat\u2019s political.\u201d<\/p>\n Michele Beaton, a former Green Party MLA who is running again for the party, said the clinic should be public \u2014 not private.<\/p>\n \u201cThen we wouldn\u2019t have had to have you call Health P.E.I. tomorrow to get an individual a surgery,\u201d said Beaton.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is not how this should happen because that means somebody else\u2019s family member is not going to get their surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n Deagle defended himself, saying he has people advocating to him all the time.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are we elected for?\u201d Deagle asked.<\/p>\n Randy Goodman, a former member of the Health P.E.I. board, raised concerns about political interference in the agency.<\/p>\n \u201cP.E.I. has struggled to complete the original goal of Health P.E.I. which was to be an arm\u2019s length Crown corporation that\u2019s allowed to think beyond the election cycle,\u201d said Goodman.<\/p>\n \u201cCurrent decisions [are] driven by the premier, treasury board, cabinet, health minister and the flavour of the election rather than long-term planning. In fact, in his interview last week, Premier [Rob] Lantz said the CEO works at the behest of the premier. Apparently he hasn\u2019t read the legislation or the accountability agreement, that the CEO actually reports to the board.\u201d<\/p>\n A number of attendees spoke about living without a family doctor.<\/p>\n Judy Hughes was one of them. She asked people in the room who did not have a family doctor to stand up.<\/p>\n Nearly half of the room stood.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s nowhere to go,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n As of Feb. 28, about 33,500 Islanders were on the provincial patient registry waiting to be matched with a family doctor or nurse practitioner.<\/p>\n Gordon Gallant, 74, who has undergone heart surgery and lives with diabetes and an immune deficiency, said he is still without a family doctor.<\/p>\n \u201cI need a doctor,\u201d Gallant told the room.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s too many of us that need doctors. We\u2019re seniors. We\u2019re trying to live at home. We\u2019re trying to do the best we can. But we also need the support of doctors.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Emily Sullivan said she will lose her family doctor in May and worries about what that means for her care.<\/p>\n \u201cThis past winter I was quite ill, hospitalized and in the ICU for a while,\u201d she said. \u201cI am having out-patient tests, which I was hoping I would have a family doctor to provide some direction, after the test is performed. It has taken, just to schedule a test from a clerk, two to four months depending on the test.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[134,527,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-334172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773762969_823_default.jpg\")
About 125 people attended the town hall meeting, which was far fewer than organizers had anticipated, as they had moved the meeting to a larger venue that could hold up to 450 people. (Rick Gibbs\/CBC)<\/p>\n![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773762969_378_default.jpg\")
Liberal health critic Gord McNeilly, who organized the town hall, speaks with Health Minister Cory Deagle. (Rick Gibbs\/CBC)<\/p>\n![\"Man](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773762969_447_default.jpg\")
Randy Goodman, a former member of the Health P.E.I. board, says he\u2019s concerned about political interference at the agency. (Rick Gibbs.\/CBC)\u2018I need a doctor\u2019<\/p>\n![\"Four](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773762970_279_default.jpg\")
A number of people in the room say they didn’t have a family doctor and worry about what that will mean for their care. (Rick Gibbs\/CBC)<\/p>\n