Atlantic Canada — The ministers of Health for all the Atlantic Canadian provinces have announced sweeping expansions to maternity and delivery wards at hospitals to prepare for the babies that will be born nine months after the deep freeze that kept Maritimers indoors the past two weeks.
“Nine months from now, we’re going to see a mini baby-boom in the Atlantic provinces. It’s cold as all get out, and there’s nothing to do but…it,” New Brunswick Health Minister Benoît Bourque told our reporter.
“Not only that, but people can’t be bothered to dig the car out to go to Shoppers and buy contraception, so they’re just taking a gamble. So shortly after back-to-school time this year, we’re going to need a major infrastructure adjustment for all things maternity.
“We’re allocating funding from that surplus — people thought we spent it all, but we’re not that dumb — toward expanding and updating the ward at the DECH and SJRH, and we’re even going ahead with daycare upgrades for a few years from now.”
A major winter storm is expected to slam down Thursday, and that may very well prove to be the biggest baby-making day of the season.
“The husband and I have been tryin’ for a while but I figure tomorrow we’ve both got a guaranteed snow day, so we’ll really get down to business,” said Montague, P.E.I. woman Donna Leonard, hopeful mother of many. “The plows don’t even come by here so there’s no way we’re goin’ anywhere. And the main thing is we won’t have TV or Netflix, assuming the power conks out — just us two and our warm bed.”
King’s County Memorial Hospital is gearing up to make way for Leonard’s offspring, and the hundreds of new tiny, screaming, shitting Islanders arriving this fall.
“Hospitals are starting to hire new nurses and looking into training midwives for people who prefer a home birth,” said Health Minister Robert Henderson. “I know there was some controversy with ultrasound wait times, but we’ve got that sorted and now we’re throwing money at this impending baby boom left and right. It’s really the only way we’re going to expand the Island’s population — it’s not like anyone’s going to just move here voluntarily.”
As a bonus incentive to would-be parents, all Atlantic hospitals are participating in a special giveaway: if your child is born nine months from Thursday (give or take a day or two), your baby will be given a free snowsuit to last it through the following winter.