Emerson MLA Cliff Graydon as sent a letter to the provincial health minister asking him to consider re-opening the operating room at the Altona Hospital.

The O-R was officially closed by Southern Health RHA back in February, 2016 for a variety of reasons.

"We were very unsuccessful in the recruitment of an anaesthetist, and the OR required over a million dollars in renovations to the CSR (Central Sterilizing Room)," said RHA spokesperson Paulette Goossen. "Also, we had only performed ten surgeries in the last few months of 2015 and first few months of 2016, so sustaining the service was going to be very costly."

Graydon maintains that a surgical program is important to a community like Altona and the surrounding area and would compliment the surgical work being done at Boundary Trails Health Centre.

"I've been informed that the operating theatre in Altona is one of the best facilities in southern Manitoba, equal to or better than the one in Steinbach," said Graydon.

Graydon says you never want to see health services being shut down in a community, since they add to the attractiveness of a town. The Tory MLA suggests a surgical program can help to attract and retain doctors to Altona.

However, Goossen disagrees, and says the recruitment of physicians should be the priority, not surgeons.

"We need the family doctors in Altona so that we can maintain our ER services, which are utilized far more than the OR would be."

Goossen points out that the physicians being recruited to Altona are fee-for-service family physicians who primarily focus their energies on their clinic time as well as providing after hour services in the ER. They are not normally trained for surgery.