A Commentary by Doug Draper
I’ve been getting a bit tired of all the criticism thrown at Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor recently, as if to say he is a pandering or being some kind of phony populist or opportunist for speaking out against the way the Niagara Health System is managing a majority of this region’s hospital services.
Niagara Falls Liberal MPP Kim Craitor at a recent public rally for better hospital care, Photo by Doug Draper
So I wrote some of the following, and for those of you who may have missed the essence of it in my weekly column earlier this July in Niagara This Week, I am repeating some of it here since we shall all find it disturbing that an MPP win the region who has the guts to stand up for the constituents in his riding, when `ZA over what his governing party’s position may be is more or less dumped upon by what has become such a low-end community paper like The St. Catharines Standard.
What follows is is a version of my column which appeared a week ago in Niagara This Week, which still at least has the guts to take the NHS on and ask it a few tough questions.
Well you had to know that something involving the mess the Niagara Health System has made of hospital services in this region was one day going to make the national press. You can’t just keep having the same old boys and girls club running our hospitals like a bunch of kids playing in a sandbox without the proverbial poop hitting the fan.
Earlier this month that big fan was hit with a front page story in the July 4 edition of The Globe and Mail about the ongoing outbreak of the superbug C. Difficile that has so far claimed more than 20 lives since this spring at three hospital sites the NHS manages in St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Welland.
This weekly paper, through my columns and stories and editorials by others on the Niagara This Week team, has tried to keep the NHS’s feet to the fire. But sad to say it may take something like this Globe story, running coast to coast, right under an endearing photo of Catherine, the Dutchess of Cambridge clasping hands with a sweet-looking little girl from Prince Edward Island, to finally get someone in the Ontario Liberal government, other than Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor, to finally take the concerns of countless thousands of residents over the state of hospital care here seriously.
Up to now, all we’ve been getting is Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews making like Pavlov’s dog, salivating every time she hears a bell or in this case, a complaint against the NHS. From the sound of the bell, Matthews has talked up the “excellent job” the administrative members of NHS are doing and how much faith the government continues to have in them. Never a word, of course, out of St. Catharines MPP and Liberal cabinet minister Jim Bradley who is getting the new hospital complex, where most of the acute care services for Niagara will go, built in his riding rather than in a more central local where there’d be fairer for all Niagara residents.
So the Liberal government throws one of their own, Kim Craitor, under the bus on this one, and why? Because he had the audacity to stand up for his constituents and say he finds it “shocking” that the NHS is not doing a better job of informing the public on this C. difficile outbreak, and disappointing that his government’s health minister isn’t doing more about it? Then you get the editorial writers of The St. Catharines Standard punching Craitor in the head again last week for advocating for progressive change in the Niagara Health System.
“Let’s be clear here,” said a June 30 Standard editorial. “Craitor and others of his ilk are only enamoured with the idea of change as long as it conforms to their way of thing. If all previous programming and services were returned to south Niagara hospitals, they’d be content with Donald Duck as (NHS) board chair.”
Given who we have in charge of things at the NHS now, I think that I could just as well go for Goofy or Homer Simpson. What kind of crap is this coming from a daily newspaper that still may have the largest circulation in Niagara, although we may know. But I’d rather have courageous and principled government member like Craitor, who puts the concerns of his constituents ahead of partisan politics, than the administration we have now and an honourable Jim Bradley who sits back and fiddles while emergency rooms and other acute care services across this region burn..What an insult to countless many Niagara residents that The Standard, which has almost always functioned as a public relations branch of the NHS, should end that June 30 editorial dumping on countless many Niagara residents with the words “the flailing Craitor and the rest of his south Niagara gang,” as if to suggest they are some hopeless, ready-to-be-roped-in band of outlaws.
In that front-page Globe story from July 4, St. Catharines resident Joyce Western is seen in a photo holding a smiling photo of her 89-year-old mother Marjorie, who was suffering from pneumonia and admitted to the St. Catharines General Hopsital this past May. After her admission, according to the story, she began showing symptoms of C. difficile and died shortly thereafter. “In my opinion,” says Western in the article, “if they hadn’t transferred her to the hospital, she would still be alive today.”
Something is wrong with the hospital services the NHS has jurisdiction over, and it has been going wrong at least back to the time when west St. Catharines, in the north end of Niagara, was chosen for the only new hospital facilities for which this region will likely receive funding for decades to come.
When is someone in this provincial government other than Kim Craitor going to have the courage to stand up and do something about it? When are they going to place the health of members of our family, our neighbours and others in our community above crass, self-serving politics?
Share your own comments on this issue below.
Niagara At Large 
MPP Bradley, in my opinion, will not be re-elected unless he supports his fellow MPP Kim Craitor. Healthcare in the Niagara Region will be a major election issue and the candidates who recognize this and who are able to articulate their sincerity will win. The probability that improvements will result will be greatest if the elected MPP’s for Niagara Region are with the party who ends up ruling the province. South Niagara has elected provincially and federally,MPP’s who were not with the ruling party and has been neglected, even though the MPP’s have worked very hard to gain support for fair healthcare in south Niagara. Political reality that we should consider come voting time.By the way, do we know yet who will be running in South Niagara for the Liberal and Conservative parties? Thank you for the opportunity to express my views.
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Too bad his party won’t listen to him.
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A stranger’s death is too bad, a neighbor’s death is unfortunate, and a family member’s death is tragic.
Watch out NHS administrators, your families live in this area, too, and one of them might be next. (or would you have them transferred out of the region?).
Anyway, that’s what I think.
Jack McDowell.
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What gall to say they have put C. difficile patients with someone only suspected of being infected!! They shut down hospitals and now are saying they have no choice but to put patients together……. are they crazy?
If that was their relative, what would they do? These health leaders should be up in arms re: the position the gov’t has put them in…. the Taj Mahal in St. Catharines is going to be a standing monument to the careless, greed and incompetence that is continuing to spiral with the “Death Knell” pealing out in Niagara.2 hospitals sit like empty shells stripped and barren while the other hospitals are overcrowded and unable to meet the needs of the public….Thanks Kim and the Councillors and Mayors who are speaking out for common sense and a Health System that actually saves lives .
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I recall a presentation given to the Fort Erie council one winter evening concerning Reilly Anzovino (editor’s note; the teen from that town who died on a rush to a Welland emergency room after a traffic accident and after the ER in her hometown was closed). When Mr. Craitor was on the way to his car afterward, I noticed tears in his eyes. That is a man I can respect. If McGuinty was there, he probably would have spewed some platitudes with dry eyes and fake sincerity. The only dilemma is do I vote for Mr. Craitor or for a party that I want?
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Dear Linda
Are you the same Linda McKellar that is a huge fan of Sparks ?
I just stumbled across your name in this column.
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Kim is a good man. He is the only politician that has cared enough to respond to my emails with a phone call shortly after me sending it. He had the time to discuss my concerns and I was impressed with his sense of fairness and responsibility. But, it is said that a fish rots from the head down. Mcguinty has never responed to an email I have sent to his “I care Ontario” website and has decided that we here in south Niagara are not deserving of the same medical services that most Ontarioans have. It is hard to do business with a company where the boss and owner and most of the employees don’t give a rat’s butt about you and yours. But there is one excellent employee who you deal with all the time. Typically, you secretly hope that great employee finds a better job where he is appreciated for the work he does in spite of the company he keeps. Maybe the best scenario is Mr Kraitor wins his seat and the rest of McGuinty gang crashes and burns. How much less can Kim do for our riding when in opposition, than he was allowed to do when his party was in power? He can’t be ignored any more than completely.
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Doug, please do not wait for MPP Bradley to stand up for the southern tier. As I mentioned in a reply to another column his and the parochialism of elected officials from St. Catharines is evident for all to see.
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I met Kim Craitor only once, at a Heritage Event in Chippawa, years ago. I wondered about him. Everything I have seen since that time, including TVO’s ‘debate’ with Steve Pakin recently, led me to understand this man stands alone. He is a maverick in the Peter Kormos mold. A man who stands on principle, not just a wish for re-election. Wish I could vote for him. I would if I could.
Gail B
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Kim gets an A plus. I’m sure he’s proud of himself, and he should be. Unfortunately, his party doesn’t deliver on health care.
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I disagree with Mr. Mazzei’s political assessment. Neo-Conservative and neo-Liberal policies endorsing profit-driven health care have led us into this current mess. Unfortunately, a vote in favour of either of those parties endorses such tiered health care policies (better service for the rich than the poor etc.) The notion that pork barrel politics has negatively affected the southern tier is also mostly mistaken. The near collapse of manufacturing in Niagara is widespread throughout Canada (to the tune of about 300,000 good jobs). These manufacturing woes can be attributed in large part to trade deals endorsed by Liberals and Conservatives.
I’d rather not sound like I’m bashing those parties, because, for example, I DO like the Liberal Green Energy Act, but the current acceleration of profit driven health care (P3 hospitals etc.) is dangerous, and the above-mentioned trade deals need to be re-negotiated, or, as Malcolm Allen said, “tightened up”.
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I agree with you Mark. I think to some extent this is a deliberate ploy to get Ontarians all revved up and to blame public health care as the “cause” of this and to increase the “demand” for privatized health care. I can tell you right now under privatized health care, many of us will likely die, not able to pay for it or obtain insurance. It’s always those that don’t need health care or can afford private health care that want to push this privatization agenda on the rest of us.
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As I said before “Dalton is done”! Unfortunately a good , honest man like Kim C, suffers the consequences of his leader’s demise…sorry Kim …. wish there was some other way around this HUGE dilemma!
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These comments remind me of an email I once sent to the office of the Premier regarding the effects the Hospital Improvement Plan was having on the citizens of Niagara South. To my surprise I did get a reply.
Dear Ms. Salzer
Thank you for expressing your concerns on the GST.
He can’t run an office, he can’t run Health Care, he can’t run our Province
Goodby Dalton. Frank Demizio might have a job for you.
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