Bill Holden is the Mayor of Melita and he spent much of the AMM Spring Convention in Brandon talking about health care and other services.

Holden is worried about recent moves to take government services and jobs out of his town. He pointed to government areas like agriculture and even Hydro as examples of positions and people being moved out to larger communities.

“We focused on things like health care and even policing. I guess you’d call it a lot of centralization of services. We’ve all lost ag offices and hydro offices and of course we’re always working on maintaining health care. I’m in my third term in office and we’ve been fighting to keep these small town health care units and not just Melita, but other town’s Boissevain and Killarney. It’s like beating your head against the wall.”

Holden adds ambulance service is another key point. He says municipalities are working hard to get training back to Western Manitoba and to keep jobs in the rural areas.

“We’re looking at the possibility of going to nurse practitioners because we just can’t attract new doctors and retain them.