From Wayne Redekop
(Niagara At Large is posting the following information from the NDP camp of Wayne Redekop in the Niagara Falls riding for your information.
Niagara residents deserve a good debate and discussion on where we are going with hospital services in Niagara and if any individual or political party member – Liberal, NDP or Conservative – offers something forward, Niagara At Large will post it.)
From Wayne Redekop, Ontario NDP candidate, Niagara Falls riding
“The McGuinty Liberals believe that appointing a supervisor can help them avoid the political fallout from the crisis at the Niagara Health System,” said Redekop.
Wayne Redekop
“Between the closure of two emergency wards, skyrocketing executive salaries, contracting out of services and the C. difficile crisis, Niagara families have been questioning the NHS for years. Yet the government and Minister of Health has consistently backed the organization, claiming that “Health care is getting better in Niagara; make no mistake about it” and “The NHS is doing excellent work…there is new leadership there.” (Legislative Assembly, March 3, 2011)
Redekop said Niagara families deserve an independent investigation to provide answers.
“For the Health Minister to make this sudden decision after backing the NHS is nothing less than political opportunism in an election year,” said Redekop. “It’s time to put families ahead of politics, call an independent investigation into the NHS, and get to the bottom of this mess immediately.”
Wayne Redekop, a former mayor of Fort Erie and regional councillor, has been a fighter for healthcare in Niagara. He’s called for independent oversight of the NHS since 2008.
(If you care, share your views on this post in he comment boxes below.)
Niagara At Large 
Paul Leon says everyone has “an Agenda” and George Lepp says an investigator should have been appointed three ” Months ” ago.
Wake up boys and smell the roses. Our agenda to restore Health Services to the Southern Tier has been ongoing for Three long YEARS,,not Months.
The Hospital Improvement Plan started the downward trend and the recent CDiff outbreak is only symtomatic of everything that has been wrong with this paper plan.
LikeLike
Of course! At long last it all boils down to political convenience. Even by the noteworthy politician-writer of this article. Patients die and politicians continue to accuse each other, spin, alibi, or lie. Some people in Niagara and elsewhere say, “Be more reasonable, give Deb Matthews a chance.” Nonsense. She’s had her chance and she blew it. People die unnecessarily in Niagara and still – on tonight’s CBC – Matthews tries to distract and alibi. These political types, in my view, do not really care about people, only in getting themselves reelected or newly elected.
LikeLike
The Ombudsman now has oversite of the NHS.
We all remember his scathing report on the Niagara LHIN going so far as to call the LHIN actions illegal.
For three years we have heard the stories in Niagara of callous Health Care in the system.
Take a minute now and send your story in confidence to the Ombudsman
thewatchdog@ombudsman,on,ca
LikeLike
As I listened to Deb Matthews being interviewed on CBC radio I kept waiting for her to say something like, “we have to do something, there’s an election in a few weeks.” But of course she didn’t. I have written to her several times over the last three years, asking for the ministry to send someone to run the NHS. Sooner would have been better.
LikeLike
Matthews on CBC claimed that the QUALITY of medical care in Niagara has diminished such as to render critical the peoples’ current lack of confidence in NHS. Thus, by inference Matthews is shifting the blame onto doctors and nurses. This is patently incorrect. The quality of medical-surgical care per se remains undiminished. It is ACCES to that basically good care through the broken, government-run, health care DELIVERY system, NHS, that is grossly failing. Mathews still doesn’t seem to “get it.”
Of less serious but significant note, even a new bureaucratic layer of “health care connect” officers (who are supposed to facilitate patient connections to doctors also trapped by the delivery system) across the entire province is inept and obstructionist or essentially non-enabling.
The inept business-oriented lay-managers, trying to run the system, have also failed at the task. Their answer is just to hire more like themselves.
As I’ve said before, the system should be put back into the hands of nurses and doctors. Some may still know how to balance books. Most have a conscience and can do their unique front line jobs.
So? Let’s just wait to see from what profession Matthews appoints this promised NHS “supervisor.”
LikeLike