Niagara Health System Has Created Health Care “Chaos”

(If you’d like a little more insight into why people in Niagara’s south tier have so little confidence in the Niagara Health System and province when it comes to hospital services and their hospital care, this address by Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey should provide a few clues.

Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey

He delivered it this December, during the last session of 2009 of his city’s council, on the same night it approved a resolution by the council for the City the of Niagara Fall calling on the province to have the NHS’s operations investigated. Niagara At Large posts the address in its entirety and welcomes a rebuttle from the NHS or province if they so choose.)

By Vance Badawey

Good evening.

May I take this opportunity to elaborate on comments I had made regarding the resolution passed by Niagara Falls City Council and subsequently supported by Port Colborne City Council at our last meeting.

In particular, to the specific challenges the City of Port Colborne is facing due to the bad decisions by the NHS and the lack of attention by both the Premier and Minister of Health and Long Term Care. The situation in Port Colborne and throughout the Region of Niagara is in dire need of provincial attention.

If the province does not react accordingly, they are ignoring their responsibility to ensure that the people of Niagara receive the highest quality of health care we deserve. As you know the NHS outlined its position within the HIP relative to enablers, ensuring they would work to have all in place before changes were made.

This has not been the case and the changes have been made. As a matter of fact, the City of Port Colborne has worked thoroughly throughout the past year to pick up the slack, ensuring some enablers are in place so our residents have equal access, to at the very least, Community Based Primary Health Care. Based on the work by our community, our primary health care services are continuing to be better aligned, working closer together to ensure our residents have equal access to a broader range of health care services.

By bringing to the City Dr. Xu and his Family Health Organization (FHO), along with the recent opening of our Community Health Centre (CHC), the recruitment of two GP’s, an Endocrinologist and a Cardiac Specialist, it proves what a community can achieve when working extremely hard to validate what health care services we need and in turn, making it happen.

However, even with these enablers in place, there still exists gaps and gridlock throughout both the local and regional system. Although components of our submission to the minister earlier in the year are currently beginning to prove successful in making available “primary health care” services to our residents that have never before been available in our community, the integration of these services with acute care services, such as a formalized Emergency Department has been compromised.

This continues to create an imbalance of access by our residents to these particular health care services. Adding to this concern is the lack of expediency to the planned renovations to our Urgent Care Centre limiting the ability to integrate primary health care and expand the availability of acute care services.

 The delay by the ministry has halted our community’s momentum to further integrate health care services in Port Colborne, expanding the possibility of providing urgent care services and is negatively impacting on the growth of our Family Health Organization on the hospital site toward becoming a full fledged Family Health Team.

Additionally, upon perusing July’s release of the LHIN’s Business Plan, I recognized that while the NHS has begun construction of a new hospital and regional cancer centre, they are using Superbuild Funds to bridge their operating cash requirements. THIS IS NOT PROPER!!!

Construction costs will create additional pressures on the hospital’s cash flow as they will no longer be able to do this. As well, their financial institution will not extend their credit without guarantees from the LHIN/Ministry.

The NHS has dug a hole in which it cannot get out of without the intervention of the Ministry. As mentioned above, all jurisdictions throughout the region are now facing the challenges due to the bad decisions contained within the HIP. Enablers have not been put in place by the NHS, in fact, they have been downloaded onto us to fend for ourselves. We have had no choice but to take it on…which we have.

 However, even with these enablers in place, there still exists gaps and gridlock throughout the system, forced delays to implement our objectives and “bad business practice”, the latest being the use of “Superbuild” capital funds for operating, WHICH IS NOT THE INTENT FOR THIS (SUPERBUILD) FUNDING in the first place which will in turn, create additional pressures on the hospital’s cash flow as they will no longer be able to do this.

Additionally, the NHS is implementing the Hospital Improvement Plan, however, there are limited savings and the NHS would require significant capital funds to implement the restructuring plan and the LHIN does not have the resources to address the NHS’s financial situation. With this said, will we ever see the enablers put in place? Will the gaps and gridlock continue to occur across the entire system? Will equal access to acute care services ever be available to the majority of residents in Niagara? Will the renovations ever get completed in Port Colborne?

 One word comes to mind – CHAOS!!!

Without their attention to the current situation in Niagara, the Premier and Minister of Health and Long Term Care are ignoring their responsibility to ensure that the people of Niagara receive the highest quality of health care we deserve. 2010 has started off the same as 2009 – a great deal of neglect in relation to Niagara’s Health care system!!! Once again, this is unacceptable!!!

It is time Queen’s Park paid attention to the neglect of Niagara’s health care needs. We have stepped well beyond rhetoric and crafting sound bites to gain attention. We have listened, learned and worked diligently together to provide equal access to health care for our residents. We expect the same from Queen’s Park.