Editorial – It’s time to call in the Provincial Government because there seems to be too many secrets at the Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge District Health Unit.
It’s becoming more than apparent that there are significant problems at the facility in Port Hope.
Knowing and speaking with other media in the area, they are just as frustrated as Today’s Northumberland about the lack of information coming from the health unit concerning cases of COVID-19 in our region.
And from the events on Wednesday, September 23, 2020 it’s not just the media that are frustrated.
The latest fiasco happened on Wednesday, September 23, 2020 when Today’s Northumberland broke the news one resident of Legion Village in Cobourg had COVID-19.
No one else knew – even though the case was confirmed the day before on Tuesday, September 22, 2020.
Think of this – you’re a frontline worker responding to an emergency.
You do the best to protect yourself – but you also have faith in the system.
The unfortunate part in all of this.
All of the emergency services in Cobourg including police, paramedics and firefighters first learned that a person at Legion Village is in isolation and has COVID-19 because of Today’s Northumberland reporting.
Would you be furious?
Whose fault is it?
In other regions of the province where they have a population of just over 3,000 people their health unit inform the community if a person has COVID-19.
But where we live, we are only told if someone has it in Northumberland County which has a population of 86,000 (as of 2016).
Ridiculous, absurd and something community members should be furious about.
Municipal, provincial and federal politicians should be pounding the doors down of the health unit demanding answers.
Another nail in the coffin for the way the Health Unit has responded to the pandemic – if you go to COVID-19 Cases in Schools and Child Care Centres it tells you not only which school in the province has a case of COVID-19, it will also tell you if it is the teacher, or student.
Today’s Northumberland hasn’t gone through each and every school listed, but we think it’s a pretty safe bet that most of these schools have a lower population than most communities or townships in Northumberland County.
Also, last week, the Trent Hills Family Health Team supported it’s community by confirming the three positive COVID test results were patients of the Trent Hills Family Health Team who live in the Trent Hills area.
Not only that, they stated that two of the patients are in the 20-29 year age group and one is in the 50-59 age group.
The Health Unit that we rely on, depend on and “trust” didn’t tell us that – but a press release from the Trent Hills Family Health Team did.
The Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge District Health Unit is in dire need of help when it comes to this pandemic and the information it gives (or doesn’t) to the people they serve.
But it seems more and more like it may take some intervention from the province to help protect us.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
