Niagara South Mayor Urges Province To Live Up To Its Responsibilities To Deliver Quality Health Care

 
By Doug Draper

In a February 8 statement to his own council, Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey renewed his council’s call for an investigation into management of the Niagara Health System responsible for operating the majority of hospitals across the region.

Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey

Badawey also urged Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and his health minister, Deb Matthews, “to give Niagara their full attention (on concerns over hospital services) immediately.”

“If not,” said Badawey in his statement, “(the premier and health minister) are ignoring their responsibility to ensure that the people of Niagara receive the highest quality of health care we deserve. … Throughout the past year,” added the mayor, who is moving forward with plans to develop a South Niagara Health Care Corporation to make up for the loss of emergency rooms and other cuts the NHS and provincially appointed Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) have made to hospital services in the region’s southern tier, the city of Port Colborne has worked extremely hard to do its part.

“We now demand that the province do theirs. It is time the premier and minister of health extend their attention to the affordability of delivering health care services within the region of Niagara in 2010.”

For the record, and by clicking keep reading, we are publishing a full text of Badawey’s statement.

It is followed by the text of a story published in a local daily newspaper in February of 2002, when McGuinty was still the province’s Liberal opposition leader and visited Port Colborne when the then-Conservative government was making cuts to hospital services.

The story in the Welland Tribune leads with a line that McGuinty made a pledge to Badawey and the community that he would fight to make sure that Port Colborne’s hospital continued to have an emergency room open 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

“I met a woman in emergency here today that was admitted Monday suffering from a heart attack,” McGuinty was quoted saying following his 2002 tour of the ER at Port Colborne Hospital. “Her husband drove her to the hospital. She asked me to fight to keep the emergency department open because she didn’t think she would have made it to Welland.”

Since then, and under McGuinty’s watch as premier, the ERs at both the Port Colborne and Fort Erie hospitals have been closed and it is off to the Welland or Niagara Falls hospitals that the most critical patients, including those suffering heart attacks, are now often taken.

Here is Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey’s  Feb. 8, 2010 statement to his council on health care and hospital concerns in Niagara’s southern tier.
Province needs to pay attention to Health Care Services in Niagara

Throughout the past year, the City of Port Colborne has worked extremely hard in doing our part. We now demand that the province do theirs.

Within the City of Port Colborne we have incorporated a new corporation (South Niagara Health Care Corporation) to look after the best interests of our residents. In particular, the corporation is responsive to Physician Recruitment, Retainment and Education, the enhancement of Community Based Primary Health Care and re-establishing Emergency “Acute” Health Care services.

In the last year our team has…

HIP discussions continue with area doctors, the LHIN, NHS and Ministry:

· Presentation of a “Made In Port Colborne” solution for Rural-Small  Hospital/Emergency Rooms to Minister Caplan.
· Ongoing discussions with LHIN, NHS re: standards in UCC – ie: glidescopes, suture rooms, lighting, input for renovations etc.

Recruited new medical professionals:

· Dr. Jason King began Family Medicine Practice at 97 Charlotte St.
· Dr. Brenda Rempel , Endocrinologist started her  FULL-TIME practice at 248 Killaly Street – the only endocrinologist in Niagara.
· Dr. Emilio Raimondo, Cardiologist, began to see patients on a part-time basis at Mapleview Clinic. He now also does Holter Monitor and Echocardiography testing at Port Medical Pharmacy’s suite of clinical office space.
· Dr. Mario Ventresca, Opthamologist, re-establishes his practice in Port Colborne – relocates to 248 Killaly Street.

New, enhanced Community Based Primary Health Care:

· Continuing dialogue with LHIN re: CHC… meetings with new ED of CHC, Board of Directors.
· Temporary site chosen for CHC, Dr. Jason St. Hilaire begins rostering.
· Health Promoter hired for Port Colborne, Lori Klinesmith.
· Port Medical Pharmacy opens, in collaboration with Dr. Christian Proulx and Dr. Brenda Rempel, providing home care pharmacy needs and diabetic teaching.

Providing Health Education:

· Rural Medicine Week is a success as University of Ottawa students vote Port Colborne the best Rural Medical Week location in Ontario.
· We had 17 medical students come through Port Colborne in 2009, 3 times the number of students in the past.
· Dr. Amanda Bell is accepted to be a preceptor for Degroote School of Medicine Family Medicine Resident. Port Colborne will have residents full-time in Port for 2 years at a time. This follows successful teaching of Medical students (clerks) for academic teaching at City Hall due to a lack of teaching space at Degroote. A collaborative effort between Dr. Bell,  Dr. Karl Stobbe and the City of Port Colborne.
· We had our first Physician Assistant do her clinical rotation in Port Colborne. The first class will graduate from McMaster in April 2010.

Establishing Partnerships:

· Ongoing discussions with MOH to establish a satellite FHT in Port Colborne. Dr. Haibo Xu is granted permission from MOH to establish FHO at the Port Colborne General Hospital on the first floor. He begins to see patients in renovated suite Dec. 7, 2009. Will grow to an FHT as rostering grows and UCC renovations are completed at Hospital site.
· South Niagara Health Care Corporation continues to have educational forums bi-monthly for public, including the differences between the differing types of Primary Health Care that are now offered in Port Colborne, with plans for further forums on ‘The Health story of Port Colborne’ and ‘The Aging Population of Port Colborne’.

February 2010 – The Premier and the Minister’s (Health and Long Term Care) attention to Niagara’s Health Care needs is long overdue.
· It has been discovered that as the Niagara Health System has begun construction of a new hospital and regional cancer centre, they are using Superbuild Funds to bridge their operating cash requirements.
· Construction costs will create additional pressures on the hospital’s cash flow as they will no longer be able to do this.
· Their financial institution will not extend their credit without guarantees from the LHIN/Ministry.
· The NHS is implementing the Hospital Improvement Plan that offers limited savings and the NHS would require significant capital funds to implement the restructuring plan.
· Enablers that were to be put in place before the HIP’s implementation have yet to be put in place.
· The LHIN does not have the resources to address the NHS’s financial situation.
· Gridlock continues throughout the system, including 5-6 hour off load delays at three Emergency Departments.
· Patients throughout the region do not have equal access to acute care services.
· Planned renovations for Port Colborne’s UCC have yet to move forward, in turn, creating a hold up with the appropriate delivery of Urgent Care, better working conditions for the Hospital’s employees, and an expansion of our Family Health Team.
· Region infuses $3.1 million to enhance EMS because of changes made at the Port Colborne and Fort Erie Emergency Departments. These dollars should be coming from the province.
· Functional protocols have yet to be addressed or solidified between the NHS and EMS.
· We await eagerly, for a report from the Ombudsman.
· We await eagerly, for a decision by the coroner to call for an inquest into the death of Don Davis.
· We await eagerly, for recommendations from the province’s Rural and Small Community Health Panel.
Ø Is there a financial infusion needed for Niagara?

Ø As outlined in the resolution passed by this Council at our last meeting – is bad management the cause of Niagara’s current health care crisis?

The City of Port Colborne is on record supporting the request as per section
81 of the Public Hospitals Act that the Lieutenant Governor in Council step in and appoint an investigator to investigate and report on the quality of the management and administration at the Niagara Health System.

In all fairness to both the province and the NHS, the investigation should be first and foremost to answer both questions, followed by proceeding with the appropriate actions so that Niagara residents begin receiving equal access to all health care services.

Ø If the province is satisfied with the current administration, a financial infusion is needed to satisfy the earlier mentioned investments identified.

Ø If the province is not satisfied with the current administration, make the appropriate adjustments, and let’s move forward to satisfy the earlier mentioned investments needed.

Either way, the Premier and Minister must give Niagara their full attention immediately, if not, they are ignoring their responsibility to ensure that the people of Niagara receive the highest quality of health care we deserve.

Throughout the past year, the City of Port Colborne has worked extremely hard in doing our part. We now demand that the province do theirs.
It is time the Premier and Minister of Health extend their attention to the affordability of delivering health care services within the Region of Niagara in 2010.
I am currently making arrangements for another meeting with the Premier and the Minister to go over the above mentioned.

(Click on www.niagaraatlarge.com for related news and commentary on this and other issues of concern to our region.)