A surgeon who used to work at Flin Flon's hospital says residents in the northwestern Manitoba city have been left in a precarious situation after more than five years without general surgery services.

General surgery services at the Flin Flon General Hospital closed in March 2020, after the hospital's general surgeon left.

Dr. Gerry Clayden, who served as a general surgeon at the Flin Flon General Hospital from 1988 to 1999, said he was "astonished" that the hospital could go from a 24/7 operating room staffed by four general surgeons during his tenure to nothing at all.

Clayden and his colleagues regularly performed C-sections, cancer surgeries and a wide range of emergency operations, he said.

"It's quite telling to think that the busy surgical practice that we had in Flin Flon has

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