After 3 years without a nurse, Change Islands is finally getting one in March

After three years of having no health-care professionals working in the community, Change Islands will soon be getting a full-time nurse.

It brings with it a sense of comfort for residents, the town and the volunteer first responders. 

“Relief would be the best word to know that we are going to have somebody here,” said lifelong resident Heather White. “A sense of security in challenging times.”

White and her husband spent last winter off the island, partly due to the absence of health-care professionals. But living away from her hometown was hard, especially since they own their Change Islands home.

“This year, we decided that we would try to stick it out here,” she said. 

“Of course, when you're going through the winter like that, there’s the expense for the rent and such. So we decided now this winter, we're going to try to stick it around here. And again, much to our relief that we just got word last week that we're going to have a nurse.”

The town announced in a social media post a nurse has accepted a job on the island starting in March and they will be working out of the health clinic connected to the town hall.

Mayor Paula Flood said the news comes after a steady stream of letter writing, meetings and lobbying.

“It’s going to make a huge, huge difference to the lives of the people here. And just the amount of stress taken off people,” Flood said. 

The alleviation of that pressure will come in many forms. Since 2023, the only health care available on Change Islands has been from a committee of volunteer first responders.

“911 calls are dispatched to me,” said Flood.

“I make sure that everything is in play, that there's a team dispatched to the house, that they have all the stuff that they need … cell service and everything here is an issue with all that. And then we have to get [the patient] to the boat, transferred across the run and transferred to another ambulance and then come back."

Many volunteer firefighters are trained as ambulance drivers and they assist in loading and transferring the patients.

“We've lost people. We've had severe emergencies. We have to sometimes deal with St. John's for transport by helicopter. Fogo has an airstrip; we don't. So we have to depend on air ambulance coming through the helicopter,” said Flood.

But it’s not only  work, stress and hours that volunteers have to endure, she said.

“Everybody here on the island knows everybody, so if you get a call to respond to a serious emergency, you're going to one of your family or friends,” Flood said. “We're conscious of that too.”

Many of the permanent residents of Change Islands are seniors, she added, so having a nurse on site will allow them to stay in their homes longer and not have to move closer to other health-care facilities.

She is also looking forward to seeing technology such as virtual doctors visits becoming a reality on the island and thereby reducing the number of appointments people will have to leave the area for.

Dennis Flood began as a volunteer first responders about four years ago. He takes great satisfaction in helping others in the community, but realizes there’s only so much they can do.

He said the news they would be getting a nurse on the island was overwhelming.

"Joy," he said. "I couldn't contain it."

“It's [satisfying] to know that you're helping your neighbours, and somebody has to do it … the island couldn't exist without us, I don't think."

“We'll go back to assisting the nurse in transporting patients. If a patient needs to be transported from their home to the clinic, we can help with that.”

For residents like Heather White, who plans to never live anywhere but Change Islands again, having a nurse on hand will complete that primary care she’s looking for, and provide a sense of security in her hometown.

“Sometimes it's not the kind of things that you need to go to an emergency room for, but you do need health care professionals’ opinion,” she said. “And we're going to have that here again, so that's amazing.”

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