Whitbourne Mayor Hilda Whelan is pulling no punches in her assessment of government bringing urgent care services to their hospital.

Government announced that only urgent care will be provided at the hospital three days a week beginning Monday. Now those requiring emergency care will have to go to the hospitals in either St. John’s, Placentia, or Carbonear.

Whelan takes issue with emergency services still being about an hour away.

She references comments from Health Minister Tom Osborne saying 80 per cent of visits to the Whitbourne clinic can be dealt with using the urgent care model. “What about the other 20 per cent? Are we going to let them perish,” she asks. Whelan wonders how long it will take for the clinic to expand its hours given how long it took them to implement the change in the first place.

The province’s opposition parties are also critical of government’s announcement.

For Paul Dinn of the PCs and Lela Evans of the NDP, it comes down to proximity of emergency care.

Dinn says what people have been asking for and what government delivered are two different things because it doesn’t solve issues with access to emergency care. Likewise, Evans says it appears as though government is “randomly plugging holes” while Whitbourne is still an hour away from services.