By Doug Draper
A provincially created board that has often knocked heads with Niagara, Ontario residents over hospital services in the region has appointed a new chair.
Ontario Liberals praise new LHIN health care appointments. Conservatives' Tim Hudak wants to blow LHIN away.
Mike Shea, a Hamilton area resident with a business background and long history of serving on public boards, will be in history and serving on public boards, will be replacing Juanita Gledhill as chair of the Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant Local Health Integration Network’s) unelected board.
The LHIN, as it is more commonly known by thousands of Niagara area residents who have been angered by its support for hospital restructuring plans in the region, is one of 14 such bodies that Ontario’s Liberal government established across the province in 2006 to help steer and coordinate the delivery of hospital and other health care services.
Shea’s appointment by the province, along with that of Robert Lawler, a Niagara area resident with a backgroun as a chief executive of the St. Catharines General Hospital and the former Niagara-on-the-Lake hospital, follows a turbulent relationship with many Niagara residents over a so-called “hospital improvement plan” released by the Niagara Health System (another board responsible for managing most hospital services in the region) and quickly approved the LHIN.
Ontario’s Conservative opposition leader Tim Hudak, has repeatedly vowed to put this LHIN and others across the province out of business if he forms a government following this coming October’s provincial election.
Shea and Lawler are not new to the LHIN, by the say. Shea has been serving on it as a board member since October 2010 and Lawler has serviced on it since October, 2008.
Deb Matthews, Ontario’s minister of health, praised her Liberal government’s appointment of Shea and Lawler in a May 6 media release.
“The wealth of experience and community knowledge that Mike Shea and Bob Lawler bring to these important positions will benefit the people and the health care providers in the HNHB LHIN,” Matthews said. Mr. Shea’s experience with the communities that make up the LHIN and Mr. Lawler’s health care background will enable the continuation of the positive work underway following the excellent stewardship of outgoing Chair, Juanita Gledhill.”
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Niagara At Large 
With every new, Liberal hand picked , LHIN appointment to the Board, the need for representation from the Southern Tier is ignored. Burlington.Ancaster,Six Nations.Hamilton and Brantford have had disproportonate representation for many years. The Southern tier is consistently overlooked as are qualified members of the Medical Community.Its a known fact they would prefer to never hear what we in their south have to say about their system. Come October we will have that opportunity.
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Blow them away TIM – and I will HELP
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October is just around the corner …
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Goodie. More appointments of individuals with BUSINESS experience. Just what health care needs. That is the point. Health care cannot and must not be allowed to become a business. Why don’t they get it? Is it because they don’t want to? Hmm. What was Juanita’s severance I wonder?
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Linda
My dear friend it is appalling but the truth the very rich insurance companies have literally taken over most aspects of life and living here in Ontario if not “ALL” of Canada and that includes our Health Care which they are moving to get their greedy hands on entirely even as we speak aided and abetted by insidious governments in Ottawa and Queen’s Park.
Remember it was Colin Brown (London on) a very wealthy Insurance individual who set up the National Citizen Coalition to stop the implementation of the Health Care act in Canada, Stephen Harper became the CEO of that group from about 1998 to 2002.. (Goodbye Health Care)
An appointed “Financial Commission Board” set up by this Liberal Government basically works hand in glove with the insurance industry here in Ontario and we the consumers pay through the nose.
I have a friend in Buffalo who was astounded when I mentioned how much I pay for Insurance here in Ontario, a province where we were sold a bill of good on “No Fault”….da da da Cost to me $1200.00
a year, in Buffalo Insurance from All State, State Farm and or Geico is in the range of $241.00 for six months and that equates to about $442,00 Yearly.
There is a consulting group who works for the commission and they are basically Insurance people. Talk about the FOX Guarding the CHICKEN HOUSE???? THey appear before the commission with a decree asking for an increase and they get it 99/100.
I from experience rallies, meetings and trips to the lawn in front of the others found that Andrea Howrath was the one stable MPP at all meetings, rallies and at Queen’s Park. The rest are politicing for their own jobs
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