Foreword by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper
The Niagara Health System – that unelected body responsible for operating most of the hospital services in this region of Ontario – went around assuring local municipalities it was committed to “community based hospitals.” It made those assurances to municipal councils in Niagara Falls, Fort Erie and other municipalities in this region, right up to about three years ago, when it released its so-called “Hospital Improvement Plan.”
Welland Hospital target of public health care cuts and privatization plans.
When that controversial HIP was release, it became clear that the information this journalist was receiving from hospital insiders and trying to report to a mostly complacent public before then, was that the NHS would eventually be consolidating most hospital services for this the region, including those for Fort Erie, Port Colborne, Welland and Niagara Falls, at new hospital complex, to be located in west St. Catharines.
And this journalist kept asking; ‘If most of the acute-care services are going to be consolidated in one new mega-hospital, then shouldn’t that hospital be located at a more central site in the region.’ But few seemed willing to deal with that because they wanted to take the NHS at its word that it would keep the Douglas Memorial in Fort Erie, Port Colborne, Greater Niagara General and Welland hospitals alive as fully functioning hospitals with ‘emergency rooms’, etc., just about as they were when they were built more than 50 years ago.
Well it is now becoming painfully clear that this isn’t true now hasn’t it. We have already witnessed the closings of the ERs in Fort Erie and Port Colborne, and of other services at those hospitals and others in southern and central Niagara. Now we have news of about 120 more bed closures at the Welland Hospital – surprise, surprise.
Get used to it folks. And ask yourselves the following question; How many of you sat back for the past eight years and allowed the NHS to move forward with the location of what will be the mega-hospital in Niagara in west St. Catharines rather than at some more central site in the region? If your answer is that you sat back or weren’t paying attention to what was going on, then it is too late to complain about it now. That new hospital complex is being built in west St. Catharines at a cost to us of well over a billion dollars.
In the meantime, here is a media release from the Toronto-based citizen group, the Ontario Health Coalition, on the latest planned closing of beds at the Welland hospital site by the Niagara Health System. Rest assured, we will get more media releases like these.
(Ontario Health Coalition’s April 28 media release.)
Niagara — The Niagara Health System is planning to close about 120 hospitals beds at the Welland Hospital. The beds are housed in a wing of the Welland hospital that includes an “extended care unit” and a “long-term care unit”. This hospital wing will be closed. After closing the beds, the hospital plans to sell off the license to operate these extended care and long-term care beds to a private company, which may or may not re-open the beds at a time and place of its choosing.
“Last week, Welland municipal councillors met with Health Minister Deb Matthews with a proposal to strengthen the Welland site of the Niagara Health System,” said Sue Hotte, Niagara Health Coalition chairperson. “Far from strengthening the Welland site, the NHS proposal to close the long term care wing at the Welland hospital is further proof of the intention of the NHS to cannibalize our regional hospitals. The Health Minister must intervene to protect these services at the Welland hospital.”
“The McGuinty government has run two elections on a platform of protecting public health care,” noted Natalie Mehra, Ontario Health Coalition director. “The closure of another 120 beds in the NHS and the proposed transfer of the license to operate these beds to a for-profit company is a direct abrogation of that promise. For-profit long term care homes have poorer hours of care for residents. They put profit-taking before patient care and staff concerns. The McGuinty government said that it would strongly support public/non-profit health care. We are calling on McGuinty to intervene and stop the NHS privatization plan in Welland.”
“The people of Niagara are angry that the provincial government has routinely turned a blind eye and allowed – even facilitated – devastating cuts to local hospital services,” concluded Sue Hotte. “A new page must be turned if any of our local hospitals is going to survive.”
(Visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary of interest to residents in the greater Niagara region and beyond.)
Niagara At Large 
The hand writing is on the wall. Welland hospital is on the way out. The NHS is going to cut 75 to 120 beds at the hospital (depending on whether you believe the Ontario Health Coalition, who broke the story…or the NHS who is working at damage control).
In the near future the NHS will also be implementing more of the Hospital Improvement Plan (HIP), which will involve removing a handful or more of surgical specialties. Welland Physicians in their Task Force Report have stated these surgical “cuts” will leave Welland hospital without a vital 24/7 ER.
Niagara leaders visited Health Minister Deb Matthews recently to convince her to investigate the NHS and the HIP and the impact it is having on the region. Pat Chiocchio also went to get a firm commitment from the Minister for the 96 Long Term Beds they promised Welland in 2009. They have 500 people in Welland on a waiting list.
According to a recent update on the HIP by the NHS wait times at the ER for a patient to be admitted to the hospital have increased to 46.5 hours.
You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to realize the problem is created by a lack of hospital beds.
What is the minister’s response to the pleas from south Niagara? Looks like she has ordered the NHS to cut another 75 to 120 beds in Welland.
Welland hospital is the only hospital left in the southern tier, seving Port Colborne, Wainfleet, Fort Erie and of course Welland.
If you are concerned about this you had better call, email or write your mayors, councillors, regional councillors, m.p.p., and Minister of Health Deb Matthews. Her email is matthews.mpp@liberal.ola.org
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The NHS reports 890 beds in the system of which 444 are medical/acute beds.
Privatize Mental Health ,Addiction and Detox,Long Term Care, and Continuing Complex Care and the NHS can put half their Administration staff on the unemployment line with many others in Niagara.
We can kiss medicare and quality of care goodby as they continue to close services and insist on putting the almighty dollar before patients in Niagara.
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We can start the movement by fighting on May 2 2o11, to vote against aq Harper majority. If Harper gets its coveted majority, what was reported above will be only the tip of the iceberg. Don’t forget that the new hospital in St. Catharines has 90% of its beds in a private room, meaning only one bed in one room. I tried to get answers from the Niagara Health System and the LHIN without any courtesy of a response with a question about whether or not patients will have to pay to stay in the hospital, or have to have coverage for private room privileges. Find out folks, these things are happening ALL OVER … and Harper is going to try to make it look like the province of Ontario started these cuts.
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The news article about selling off the long term care beds to private companies is no surprise.
“Long term beds are rare commodities” – translation, health care is now a business and beds and the people in them “commodities”.
Long term care “is a type of new revenue” – if so, why sell something that can bring in needed money to the system? It’s like selling the 407 ETR or the LCBO. If it makes money, sell it.
Richelieu may be interested in the purchase but is a Francophone institution. Will that mean others are excluded? I assume that establishment gets generous grants from the government as a vote getter from an “oppressed minority” and yet they cannot afford “to pay premium” to buy although they would no doubt make a profit in the long (or short) run. In other words, lets give it away and off the government’s hands.
If senior care is privatized a profit must be made. This means professional skilled staff will be replaced by cheaper less qualified staff, cuts will be made (food, staffing numbers, housekeeping and amenities) and wages will be slashed and unions protecting employees discouraged. Sound familiar?
Of course, who cares? They are only old people like our parents and, soon, US!
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Dire predictions are coming true by the minute.
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