The Man Behind Niagara Citizen Hospital Services Advocate Sue Salzer

By Doug Draper

Behind some of the most dedicated citizen activists I’ve met in Niagara over my 32 years of reporting are incredibly patient and supportive spouses.

Joe with wife and citizen activist Sue Salzer. Photo courtesy of Sue Salzer.

I think most particularly of Norm Howe and Jim Matthews, the husbands of two of the most effective environmental activists whose efforts I covered earlier on in this region – Margherita Howe and Lynne Matthews. And I think of Joe Salzer, the husband of Sue Salzer, a Fort Erie resident and leader of the Yellow Shirt Brigade, a group of mostly south Niagara residents that is continuing to fight for accessible, quality hospital services for all.

Joe  Salzer passed away quietly this past Sunday, December 4 following a lengthy illness. He spent his last hours at the Douglas Memorial Hospital in Fort Erie, one of the hospital s that was taken hostage by the Niagara Health System under an amalgamation of most of Niagara’s hospital services, imposed without any say from the public by the former provincial Conservative government of Mike Harris.

Sue Salzer and Yellow Shirts are still fighting to restore emergency and other acute care services the NHS pulled out of Douglas Memorial, just as they are fighting for the restoration of quality services in other hospitals across the Niagara region.

This reporter only met Joe Salzer over the phone, a man who was attached to an oxygen tank and yet was always so pleasant and patient with me when I asked to speak to Sue about a hospital issue.  He often had to respond that Sue was out, either looking after another loved one or at a meeting that almost always had something to do with Niagara’s hospitals. He always assured me, most kindly, that Sue would get back to me and she always did.  

In a note Sue Salzer sent me hours after Joe’s death, she described him this way; “He was a kind, gentle and loving man who put up with my shenanigans with quiet support and good humour.”

Another note Sue sent me this December 4 speaks to some of the experiences so many other Niagara residents face as services diminish at so many hospital sites across the region. That message reads as follows;

 “There is so much I want to say
We are grateful that Joe was able to spend his last few days in Fort Erie in
one of the six remaining medical beds at DMH…six beds for a community of
30,000
We are grateful to be able to pay for the private ambulance service
necessary to get him to the hospital because EMS was not allowed to take him
there.
We are grateful to the caring wonderful nursing staff on first floor of DMH
who made Joe’s last days so comfortable.
We are grateful to the warm care of Dr Che who made home visits, arranged
home nursing care and allowed Joe to spend quality time at home with his
family.
Losing a loved one is so emotional a journey. My heart goes out to families
who see their family members taken to Niagara Falls and experience so many
difficulties along the way including the daily necessity of travel.
My prayers will always include the return of our ER and enough medical beds
to service all the patients from Fort Erie in need of compassionate
hospitilization. In our sadness there is also much to be thankful for.”

This reporter would like to add that this past August, when the now-former board chair of the Niagara Health System, Paul Leon, complained to friends in the mainstream media that one of the problems the NHS faces is that there are some in Niagara “using anything then can to advance their agendas, and tis has caused a great deal of confusion and concern within our communities,” it was hard not to conclude that he had in mind people like Sue Salzer, her husband Joe and many thousands of others in Niagara who have been campaigning against the implementation of the NHS’s so-called ‘hospital improvement plan’.

As I said in response to Leon’s remarks at the time, people like Sue Salzer have never had anything to gain but perhaps the thanks of others in the community and the possibility of winning the odd battle against an NHS armed with mulit-millions of our taxdollars and the support of the provincial government. She and her friends and supporters are not making a penny for their efforts in contrast to the six-figure salaries enjoyed by many in the NHS’s administration.

So Niagara At Large honours Sue Salzer and her husband Joe at this time of his passing.  A date has yet to be set for a Christmas Memorrial Mass for Joseph John Sazler. Stay tune for that information.

(Niagara At Large invites you to share your thoughts in the comment boxes below.)