Cape Breton pain doctor's retirement has patients worried about clinic

Some long-suffering patients in Cape Breton are afraid they might lose the services of a clinic at the Northside General hospital.

The person in charge of the chronic-pain clinic, Dr. Harry Pollett, wants to retire.

His patients say he administers treatment not offered at the chronic-pain clinic at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital in Sydney.

Sydney woman Laurie Peters slipped and fell 12 years ago, damaging her ankles.

From pain to relief

Before becoming Pollett's patient, she says she saw 13 other doctors.

"Nobody could do anything for me and I was pretty much bed-ridden, depressed, moody, on 20 pills a day," she said.

The 49-year old Peters now undergoes a combination of treatments including intravenous anaesthetics, which make her pain tolerable.

"It brings my pain score down from a nine and a half to a six, which is huge."

She doesn't expect the same care to continue when Pollett is gone.

"They don't do IV lidocaines or believe in IV lidocaines at the Sydney clinic," Peters said.

'It hasn't happened'

Greg Boone, a spokesman for the Nova Scotia Health Authority, can't say what will happen when Dr. Pollett retires "because it hasn't happened."

Nor could he say what treatments will be available when it does.

"There are clinical standards and guidelines that help to guide treatments that are provided to patients in any number of programs and services," he said.

Boone says the clinic will not close.

"We'll continue to support the clinics at the same level that we always have. We provide salary for a registered nurse and an office support person in each of the clinics, as well as supplies and some equipment."

2 petitions

Pollett's practice pays for a second nurse and extra office support.

Peters said when Pollett retires it will mean a cutback at the clinic.

"Right now, Dr. Pollett has put his retirement on hold, but if he does retire and we go under the health district, they plan to cut the staff back to one nurse and one secretary," she said.

"You cut the staff back, then it's only common sense the patients get cut back."

Peters and a group of patients have started petitions and a letter-writing campaign to ask the health authority to retain the clinic as it is.

They've gathered 1,600 signatures on the petitions — one paper and another online — and 120 letters are being sent to political and health officials.