By Doug Draper
Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey is hoping to meet with mayors across Niagara to ask them to lend their collective support for fair access to acute-care hospital services for all of the region’s residents.
Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey
As one mayor who has witnessed emergency and other acute care services disappear at his municipality’s hospital, Badawey told Niagara At Large in a January 25 interview that he will be seeking the support of the region’s mayors to get those services back.
Port Colborne has supported St. Catharines and other Niagara municipalities when they have approached the province and Niagara Health System (the body created by the province a decade ago to manage most of the region’s hospital services) to keep services in their municipalities, said Badawey during the interview. Now he is hoping other mayors and their councils will support municipalities like Port Colborne, Welland and Niagara Falls that are fighting for their hospital services.
“Our intent is to meet with all Niagara mayors to pursue an integrated approach to communicate our concerns to the (Ontario) Ministry of Health and Long Term Care,” added Badawey in a statement to his council this January 24.
Badawey recently met with the new mayors for Niagara Falls, Jim Diodati, and Welland, Barry Sharpe, to discuss the current state of hospital services in the region, and he told NAL he feels those meetings went well. Now he is hoping to receive more widespread support from his political colleagues in the region for restoring acute care services to Niagara’s central and southern tiers.
Those acute care services have shrunk under a so-called “hospital improvement plan,” unveiled by the Niagara Health System more than two years ago, that has so far seen the closing of operating and emergency services at hospitals in Port Colborne and Fort Erie, and has continued to receive the support of every entity from the NHS board to the province’s minister of health, Deb Matthews.
The NHS board, even as it has recently ousted its former CEO Debbie Sevenpifer, and Matthews have given their continued blessing to a hospital plan that will ultimately relocate most of the acute care services in this region, from maternity care on up, in a new hospital complex being built in north Niagara, on the western fringes of St. Catharines.
Badawey said the dislocation of that hospital complex means that residents in other parts of the region have to press the province for acute care services they have fair and equitable access to. That may mean fighting for a new hospital in south Niagara, he said.
Fort Erie councillors voted this January 24 to establish its own committee to fight for the re-opening of that municipality’s emergency room services. NAL attempted to call Fort Erie Mayor Doug Martin about this and to ask him why his town would not necessarily join Badawey and others in launching a multi-municipality push, but did not receive a reply by posting time.
Niagara At Large is posting below Badawey’s summary remarks to his Port Colborne this January 24. After that, share your views with us on this subject.
MAYOR’S REPORT
Council Meeting
January 24, 2011
Healthcare Niagara
I have most recently put a call out to Mayor Jim Diodati of the City of Niagara Falls and to Mayor Barry Sharpe of the City of Welland to discuss the current state of health care within the Niagara Region, as well as bring them up to date on the direction the City of Port Colborne has taken throughout the past 3 years.
Upon discussing the issue with both mayors late last week, our intent is to meet with all Niagara mayors to pursue an integrated approach to communicate our concerns to the Minister of Health and Long Term Care.
There currently exists a great deal of work that has been completed by some of Niagara’s municipalities over the course of the last 2-3 years. Individual municipalities have engaged the region’s medical community who have responded with legitimate concerns and contributed credible solutions.
It is now time to speak as one Niagara with respect to the concerns we as individual municipalities have attempted to pass on to the minister.
(Visit Niagara At Large at http://www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to our greater binational Niagara region.)
Niagara At Large 
Yahoo Mayor Badawey. We’re with you all the way. We need to speak as one collective voice for reasonable and safe access to acute and emergency services. Hopefully EVERYONE will get behind you.
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Every team needs a leader to step up to the plate,,Mayor Badaway is to be commended for joining forces with other communities who are under threat from the disasterous HIP plan.
A united voice from the Southern Tier to support MPP Kim Craitor and his demand for an investigation may finally convince the Health Minister that the current paper plan is not working.
Review the HIP before more damage is done to our Health system.
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Mayor Badaway of Port Colborne, as usual, is to be commended for his constructive concern about Niagara’s Medicare mess. A concerted, coordinated effort by all local politicians IS essential. But, if he holds his breath for Mayor Martin of Fort Erie to help, he’ll need some emergency ‘resuscitation’ himself to see things through. Sweetheart-deal Martin has made it quite clear that he values ersatz appearances only – namely, the sham H-sign on the roof of Fort Erie’s defunct hospital. Furthermore, Badaway and other constructive citizens have already, in the past, taken protest runs at the Niagara Health System and the provincial Ministry of Health and Premier McGuinty. The one other major source of Medicare trouble neglected by all protestors is the P3 – the Public Private Partners – the big money sources behind it all. Overlook them, Mayor Badaway, and ALL your efforts will be for nought.
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The YELLOW SHIRT BRIGADE has been waiting for this wonderful idea to be brought to fruition!!! Mayor Diodati has begun a good thing that will keep the ball rolling and encourage others to join forces as well we should. A united front will be much more effective and show that the people NEED their health systems closer to home ….TO LIVE!!! It seemed the other communities didn’t think the same thing would happen to them as happened to Fort Erie when we asked them for their help, now they see that the gov’t is ruthless and our well being is not their priority……. hopefully the gov’t will follow the needs and wills of the people who trusted them enough to vote them in. THESE ARE LIFE AND DEATH SITUATIONS AND THE BURDEN AND RESPONSIBILITIES ARE THEIRS NOT JUST THE PEOPLE THAT ARE PASSING DOWN THE MESSAGE. THE GOVERNMENT IS PULLING THE STRINGS!! I expect that Fort Erie will gleefully jump on this bandwagon with its Mayors leadership behind it as that is what the people of Fort Erie desperately need to resurrect their Emergency Room!
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P.S. Although I only mentioned Mayor Diodati’s name , Mayor Badawey is certainly the main person to champion the Health Care problem. I have attended the Port Colborne meetings and he has been very strong in his suggestions to review & adjust what is happening . We are lucky to have him & people like Kim Craitor and all the others who have had the courage to speak out for fairness & justice for the people who are PAYING THE BILLS and getting less & less in return!!
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I agree with Dr. Hogg’s assessment. The source of private funding in the hospital is a big, costly, mistake. Maybe it’s too late to correct, despite tons of evidence out west and elsewhere that it’s an inefficient system. We, the taxpayers, will be burdened with excessive expenses while certain banks enrich themselves. This issue should also be addressed. The more we wait, the more we pay. Fortunately, it would seem we have more and more allies.
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When is our Mayor of Fort Erie going to show some backbone? he and his pal Russ Wilson made a pact with the devil , keeping the status Quo for the next two years, we in Fort Erie have been played like a fiddle ever since we sent 16,000 signatures to the LHIN and no further attempts to keep up the pressure, only the Yellow Shirts have pestered the powers that be on this issue, bully for our Yellow Shirts, the Mayor only makes feeble noises on this vital issue.
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Greater pressure must be put on Dalton McGuinty and his health minister Deb Mathews.in order to have a review of the HIP plan and an independent investigator into the NHS. Since the councils of Niagara Falls, Thorold , Welland and St. Catharines all passed a motion calling for independent investigator and there was a great show of support from other mayors at Regional Council, Mayor Badawey will be able to build on this. A united front will go a long way in helping us obtain not only an investigation into the NHS but also a transparent review of the HIP plan and how it is impacting all of Niagara. We can help him by contacting our municipal and regional politicians and let them know about our concerns regarding long wait times in the ER, loss of services at the hospitals, transportation issues, adequate staffing issues ,the loss of much needed beds and the impact of closing 2 hospitals in the southern tier. The human and financial impact of the HIP plan so far have significantly crippled the ability of Community Care Access to provide home care and long term care assessement . Ambulance and police reports show that their resources are being stretched to meet the greater demand on their services. The review of the HIP plan must be comprehensive and take into account its impact on the ability of our region to meet the health care needs of its population.
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