By Doug Draper
Ontario’s NPD leader Andrea Horwath has put the province’s Liberal government on the line, once again, over the closing of hospital services in Niagara.
Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath, at a town hall on health care in Niagara Falls earlier this April.
“The gutting of healthcare services in Niagara Region has created enormous strain and anxiety, and deserves the government’s immediate attention,” said Horwath during a debate this April 12 in the provincial legislature.
Horwath, who held a town hall meeting on health care in Niagara Falls a week earlier, went on to say that; “families I spoke with last week in Niagara Falls have been forced to stand by and watch while the McGuinty government closes their emergency rooms with one hand and doles out huge pay hikes to the hospital CEOs with the other.”
“The government’s negligence is putting the health of Niagara families at risk,” Horwath said.
Niagara At Large is posting an excerpt from hansard from April 12 of Horwath asking questions of Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews on this same question cutting hospital services in Niagara and, most specifically, the emergency room services in Port Colborne and Fort Erie, Ont.
Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is to the Minister of Health. Last week I was in Niagara Falls, where I hosted a local town hall meeting about health care. People were angry and frustrated, and shared gut wrenching stories about the impact of ER closures in Port Colborne and Fort Erie. Nancy Beam from Stevensville said, “We’ve got to get our nurses back. We’ve got to get our doctors back. They do the best they can, but they need help and the government has to step up.” Will the McGuinty government step up and reopen these emergency rooms?
Hon. Deborah Matthews: I think that the investments that we have made in health care indicate our commitment to improving health care in this province. We have made substantial new investments in health care and we are seeing the results. We have over 900,000 more Ontarians attached to primary health care than when we were elected, and many of those are in the Hamilton-Niagara area. We have been able to bring down wait times for key procedures dramatically. We post those wait times and people can see for themselves. We have invested in home care. We have invested in long-term care.
We’re committed to improving health care in this province and that includes all parts of the province, including the Hamilton area.
The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?
Ms. Andrea Horwath: I have a story about wait times to tell this minister, because shutting down the local emergency rooms has swamped neighbouring ERs. Melanie Cooper took her badly injured teenage son to St. Catharines and waited four and a half hours in the ER for treatment before she finally gave up, put her son in the car and drove him to an entirely different community down the QEW, where he was seen promptly, after waiting four and a half hours—there’s a wait time for you, Minister—with a head injury. Will the minister stop hiding behind her LHINs, take responsibility and reopen Niagara region’s local emergency rooms?
Hon. Deborah Matthews: I am concerned when I hear stories about people who are not getting the health care they deserve in this province. That’s why we’re making the investments that we are making and that’s why we are focusing a lot of attention on bringing down wait times in our emergency departments. It’s important that people get the care they need as quickly as possible. We are working with our hospitals and yes, with our LHINs to bring down those wait times.
The Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant LHIN has really done exceptional work when it comes to wait times on a number of procedures. I know they are working on bringing down those emergency department wait times.
There is still work to do, and we are committed to doing the work and making the tough decisions that need to be made.
Click on www.niagaraatlarge.com at Niagara At Large for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to residents in our greater binational Niagara region.)
Niagara At Large 
Don’t you just love the way politicians talk around a subject and never answer the question!!!! She talked about Hamilton not Port Colborne and Fort Erie which were the specific areas the question was referring to, not Hamilton. Dalton is an idiot if he thinks ignoring us is going to keep him in office. We are angry and I for one will campaign vigorously to oust him come voting time. I don’t like being ignored here in Niagara, how about the rest of you?
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Minister Matthews needs to be told three things:
1. People in Port Colborne or Fort Erie do not live in Hamilton…..I live in Port Colborne and it takes me roughly one and 1/4 hours to drive to Hamilton.
2. You do not improve emergency room wait times by closing 39 more beds and cutting accompanying frontline staff, which is what the NHS plans to do within the month.
3. She must live on another planet, if she is not aware of the above two.
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Watching the Legislature on television is the best comedy show on TV in Canada, and certainly runs very closely to the much watched The Canadian Air Farce.
The daily program begins with the pomp and ceremony of our heritage, and then the tale begins.
The serious and credible side begins when MPP Andrea Horwath, a very articulate speaker, stands up during the Question and Answer Period and asks the Premier and Minister of Health very clear, concise questions regarding the situation in Niagara. Serious questions regarding the closing of the Emergency Rooms in Fort Erie and Port Colborne, as Andrea is very serious about helping the residents of Niagara who have had their health care taken away from them and their lives put at risk. She cited cases she personally heard when holding a town hall meeting on health care in Niagara last week.
The comedy side of this farce, filmed at Queen’s Park, is played by Minister of Health Deb Matthews, who now stands up and recites the joke lines about how they have improved health care in Ontario stating that they have 900,000 more Ontarians attached to primary health care now than when they were elected and many are in the Hamilton Niagara area. (Is that because they couldn’t get into the hospital to be treated and their health deteriorated? Andrea was not asking about Hamilton, she very clearly said Niagara Region) Another one liner is “We have been able to bring down wait times for key procedures dramatically.” (Does she mean hip and knee replacements which are painful and debilitating but not necessarily life threatening?) Tell that to the patients waiting for cancer surgery or the mother carrying a dead fetus, who had their surgeries cancelled several times) Sorry Deb we cannot laugh at that one nor can we see any good in the rest of your story line.
The comedy side of this daily production is clearly the inability of the Minister of Health and the Premier, to answer a direct question with a direct answer. If it is not in their memorized dissertation they do not know how to answer the questions asked, and do their little dance around it. Don’t forget also to watch for the bobbing heads all around them and the smirk on the face of the Premier. Now that is funny. What is not funny is their uncaring approach to health care in Ontario. That is unacceptable and in many voters’ minds, it borders on criminal.
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Knock knock?
Who’s there!
Niagara – please let me in.
We’re open to everyone in ON.
Please let me in – I’m cold.
Everyone in ON is warm.
But I’m hungry and sick too.
Everyone in ON is well and fed.
My child has a broken arm and my mother is dying.
Everyone in ON is well cared for.
Please, pay attention to what I’m saying.
Everyone in ON gets attention – next petitioner please.
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It’s not even worth watching that farce on TV. It just runs up the electricity bill. They have their agenda – period. They are not listening now and have no intention of doing so.
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WE ARE PLEADING AND BEGGING FOR A LITTLE COMMON SENSE AND EMPATHY FOR THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE HAD THEIR HOSPITAL STRIPPED AND SOLD OUT TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER. WE WILL CONTINUE TO FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHT TO HAVE EQUAL HEALTH CARE TO THE FURTHEST PARTS OF ONTARIO. WE WILL NOT REST UNTIL THIS HUGE ERROR HAS BEEN RECTIFIED. WE ARE NOT SECOND CLASS CITIZENS WHO DO NOT DESERVE WHAT OTHERS HAVE IN HEALTH CARE……ESPECIALLY WHEN WE HAVE BEEN TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF AND LEFT WITH NEXT TO NOTHING. THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN AND DISFUNCTIONAL AND WE DON’T BELIEVE THAT ALL THE $$$ WE HEAR ARE BEING SPENT ARE SPENT TO HELP OUR DILEMMA. OUR GOV’T IS NOT FOOLING ANYONE NOT EVEN THEMSELVES…. THE DAY OF RECONNING WILL COME AND THOSE WHO ARE WILLING TO FIGHT FOR THEIR RIGHTS WILL BE REWARDED!! anne
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It is more than a little disheartening to hear Matthews heap praise on the HNHB LHIN, which rubber-stamped the NHS’ Hospital Improvement Plan, a plan devised with no imput from the citizens of Niagara, nor from its medical community.
Democracy in this province is dead as a dodo.
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The funny thing is that it is called ‘NHS Hospital Improvement Plan’! The should rename it to what it actally is! I’m wondering if they’re trying to kill off a lot of us especially, seniours to save on health care spending. The whole system is disgusting, and getting worse by the day.
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My mother died Tuesday May 25 in the emergency ward at St. Catharines General. She was given stitches for a head wound on Sat May 22 and sent home without a CT scan or vitamin K shot or platelets even though the doctor knew she was on Cumidon. Of course nausea and headache followed as predicted by the doctor.
When she was brought by ambulance back to the General on Monday morning, no doctor saw her until 7 pm. By that time she was slipping into a coma from which she never recovered.
Is this health care or just helping seniors to die quickly and out of hospital?
I am furious and want to gather all those who have been victims of such negligence so that we can prevent anyone else’s mother from suffering such mistreatment.
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