By Doug Draper
(Please tell your friends and supporters of Niagara At Large to click on www.niagaraatlarge.com to read this article. That is the best way right now that you can support the future of this site.)
The Niagara Health System may be about as popular as the proverbial skunk at the garden party for many residents living in the region’s southern tier.
Another 'sign of our times'.
But the NHS, the organization created a decade ago to manage most of Niagara, Ontario’s hospitals, has at least one booster there – a Fort Erie branch of the Royal Bank of Canada! The bank is now sporting a sign that reads; ‘RBC Supports The Niagara Health System’.
And as offensive as it may be to some Fort Erie residents, angered by the cuts the NHS has made to their hospital, the bank’s support shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. RBC Capital Markets is among those financial institutions, along with TD Securities Inc., BMO Capital Markets and others, that stands to profit from NHS’s decision to build a brand new, super hospital in the north end of Niagara, where many of the region’s hospital services, including first-of-a-kind cancer treatment and cardiac centres, will ultimately go.
Meanwhile, residents in the southern tier have already seen the NHS transform the emergency rooms of their Fort Erie and Port Colborne hospitals converted in to “urgent care centres” that, while the NHS insists they will still treat about 95 per cent of the patients that received medical attention at the old ERs, will no longer take the remaining five per cent of patients suffering the most critical or life-threatening conditions.
Those patients are now being ambulanced to the ERs in Niagara Falls or Welland and Ontario’s chief coroner has already agreed to hold an inquest into one incident where 18-year-old Reilly Anzovino died after being ambulanced from a traffic accident site in her hometown of Fort Erie to the Welland hospital.
Niagara south residents have been lobbying the provincial government continuously to have the ERs in Fort Erie and Port Colborne reopened but, so far, to no avail.
The new hospital complex, now being built on the outskirts of west St. Catharines, is now largely being financed, with the blessing of the province and NHS, through what is called a “public-private partnership” or “P3” process, and RBC Capital Markets is one of the financial entities that has helped mortgage the cost.
According to NHS’s own figures, available on its website, the estimated cost of the new complex, “in today’s dollars,” is $759 million. As a result of the loans being mortgaged through RBC and other money lenders, the real estimated cost to our health care system and provincial and municipal purses will reach $1.42 billion, according to NHS’s own figures.
The local municipal share of the costs, including money coming out of the pockets of regional taxpayers in Fort Erie, Port Colborne, Welland, Niagara Falls and other communities across the region, are expected to total almost $117 million by the time the time all the bills are paid.
And that doesn’t include the tens-of-millions of dollars in infrastructure costs, including the cost of a new interchange off Hwy. 406 in west St. Catharines, transit services and other improvements that are going to have to be made to routes leading to the hospital site.
Also remember that all of these cost figures are estimates that have been made well before the work on the hospital and accompanying infrastructure has been completed or even started in some cases. Ask yourselves how many building projects you know of that have come in at or near the estimated cost.
But whatever the cost, underwriting it through a public-private partnership rather than just shelling out public dollars like in the old days, means the private partners stand to profit. Given all that, William Hogg, a retired doctor from Fort Erie and a former Fort Erie town councillor, Glenn Hutton, held their own modest vigil in front of the RBC branch in their town that is sporting the sign supporting the NHS. They displayed their own sign reading; “NHS Closed Our Hospital’s ER. There Will Be Deaths!!! Does Your Bank Support NHS?”
In a recent note Hogg shared with Niagara At Large following the vigil in front of the bank branch, he wrote; The NHS, as a result of the untimely death of young Reilly Anzovino, a local girl home from school for Christmas last, has been criticized for the arbitrary, unilateral closure of the Fort Erie hospital and its emergency department. She spent critical extra minutes in transit to Welland and her death will soon be looked into by coroner’s inquest. In connection with her death, NHS acquired an unhappy label: NHS = DOA!”
(Click on www.niagaraatlarge.com for Niagara At Large and more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to our greater binational Niagara region.)
We can show our displeasure with the bank’s decision to support those who would put our families at risk by withdrawing our accounts and going to a bank — and be careful there are at least two others — that does not support the NHS.
The Bank and it’s managers know that this is a very sensitive issue to the residents of South Niagara. We can call and pressure the bank to pull down their sign or just boycott. It could take only a couple of millionaires and their bank accounts to suggest a more sensible approach in openly supporting the very controversial hospital project .
I don’t have money in Royal Bank, but I do in TD Canada Trust and Bank of Montreal and am considering removing it. We can send a message by all doing the samd.
This whole NHS deal with a P3 hospital is all about money, not about serving the entire peninsula. If it’s about money we have to go to the source to stop this. Fort Erie and Port Colborne are getting nowhere with pleas to the politicians (including local politicians in Fort Erie some of whom have been very wishy-washy with this crusade when they should be screaming bloody murder) so go over their heads to where the money is. Do these financial institutions know that lives are at stake? Where is the general public in all of this? Where are the several thousand who were at the leisure- plex last year? Are they all hiding under bushes expecting a few people to do their dirty work? Come on Fort Erie. Wait until you need an ER and see how long it takes to get you to Welland or Niagara Falls. You may be sorry!
All comments, thus far, are right on the mark. But, the P3 private partners are powerful players, so an overall coordinated strategy is in order. Each of the suggested tactics, such as money withdrawals, needs to be done in its own good time – all at once. Patience.
Aristotle Knew!
“Money exists not by nature but by law” Aristotle 335BC
Aristotle knew and after 2345 years we still haven’t got it right. Here’s what we know!
1)Money doesn’t grow on trees
2)Money is created out of thin air by commercial banks instead of by the Bank of Canada
3)If there is too much money in circulation it causes inflation
4)If there isn’t enough money in circulation it causes deflation
5)The banks work and live in a win-win atmosphere meaning that we lose, they win regardless the circumstances
6)All new money comes into existence by debt creation with interest charges accruing to the banks
7)There is never enough money available without going into debt to purchase 100% of the country’s GDP
8)Debt increases exponentially by compound interest and causes unnecessary hardship to the public and all levels of government
9)Here is an example of how this works. From the most recent publication of Maclean’s come these figures, albeit in US dollars. The GDP per capita in Canada last year was $39,088. The earnings of the middle class Canadians was $25,340 leaving a shortfall of $13,748 per capita. So in order to pay for the total GDP we have to borrow the difference.
10)How can this problem be resolved? We can go to a Guaranteed Annual Income or we can take a page out of Richard C. Cook’s solution, of the government paying out a “National Dividend” equal to the shortfall. Voila– Eliminate poverty, exorbitant debt charges and a stabilized economy. Get on board and help right this ship!
David Boese
dash@vaxxine.com
Blog: Apathy Begone
William Hogg is right. We must, this time, bide our time then act in unison across the province. We can let the banks know we are not happy with their funding a project that deprives so many communities, mostly rural, of life-saving services. No problem funding — but the profits are obscene to many of us who have no emergency services in our communities. Wait. The time is coming when we can make our collective voices heard.
Have recently visited Ridgeway, Fort Erie, NiagaraFalls and Niagara-on-the-Lake and was appalled at the lack of emergency services in some of these areas. Not even a hospital in Niagara on the Lake where so many senior citizens live!!We were considering moving to one of these areas but are now having second thoughts!!! We have such a fast response from our emergency services in our area and can be in our ER in a matter of a few minutes at our local hospital. We realize that we are very fortunate and empathize with all the people in the Niagara Region who do not have emergency services available close by. Keep up the fight to have what every Canadian has a right to!!!!
Tricia is absolutely correct. Yesterday I spoke with family in St. Catharines (site of the NHS mother ship) and they have no clue what has been going on in Fort Erie and the outlying communities. We need to get provincial attention for this issue now!