By Sue Salzer
(Niagara At Large is posting the following comments by Sue Salzer, a Fort Erie, Ontario resident and head of the Yellow Shirts, a Niagara citizens group fighting for quality, accessible hospital services in the region. Her comments follow in the wake of a May 3 report from Niagara Health Services supervisor Kevin Smith which, among many other things, recommends replacing the existing hospital sites in Niagara Falls, Fort Erie, Port Colborne and Fort Erie with one new hospital for Niagara’s southern tier. Now here are Sue Salzer’s comments.)
No matter what Niagara Health System supervisor Kevin Smith had up his sleeve in his May 3 announcement, very little damage could be perpetrated on Fort Erie and Port Colborne. The damage was done three years ago. Any proposal would have to be an improvement of local services.
Health care advocate Sue Salzer at a 2011 rally in front of Niagara Falls hospital. File photo by Doug Draper
I find great irony that the communities who have chosen to take independent and diverse actions, re the Niagara Health System, for the past three years are now expected to join forces and collaborate on a site for a new build. There will be unprecedented jockeying for position as each struggles to protect their home turf and rightly so. Either a referee or a mediator may be necessary.
On the losing end are Welland and Niagara Falls . Both communities struggled valiantly against the NHS’s Hospital Improvement Plan that called for all Maternity and Pediatric care to be removed to the new St. Catharines Hospital. As part of Mr. Smith’s May 3 release, we now see both services travel north next year and remain there until a Southern Tier Hospital is realized.
As for the possibility of realizing a new build in a timely fashion we need only to look at the Drummond Report and the Health Care demolition in the recent budget. Four shovel ready hospital builds cancelled, including West Lincoln and a lengthy approved list of Hospital Builds and expansions left in limbo. Some projects have been in the works for eight to ten years. We are at the mercy of the province’s sitting government and even if this build were allowed to jump the cue, we remain at the mercy of the government of the day. West Lincoln just had a rude awakening to the premise that nothing is for sure.
The concept is warmly received but along the bumpy road we still must continue in the struggle with lengthy wait lists in all facets of health services. We can’t let the demand for equal and accessible service for the Southern Tier is put on a back burner while Utopia is being chased.
(Niagara At Large invites our readers to share their views on this post below.)
Niagara At Large 
Well said Sue. Thanks for hanging in there for our community.
I wonder; is it being too simplistic to think that having kept the Fort Erie Hospital open until at least a central hospital in the Southern Tier was built, would have made more sense than closing it — and perhaps saved at least one young woman’s life? For me at least, to think that the Queen’s Park government didn’t have some sense of where Smith is leading our health system is naive. If we are going to have a Southern Tier “central” hospital why not have first built it then have closed Fort Erie?
Certainly the approach the Ontario Liberals have taken, and the approach Smith is taking now, shows a complete lack of understanding of the character and needs of the Southern Tier. We are still a heavily rural area and transportation is a huge issue in the region. We have many citizens now who cannot easily get to the maternity services of a hospital so far out of our area. Not everyone has a car and not everyone has the money to travel so far. Even if they did, a true maternity emergency could lead to the death of a mother who, because of the distance and time to make it to St. Catharines, doesn’t.
Dr. William Hogg warned of these issues years ago. Time, sadly, will likely prove him right.
Keep up the fight, Sue.
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The way this whole situation has been handled is like going to the moon and saying “We’ve done it!” with no thought about how we were going to get back to earth. The restructuring was more about ego than practicality. The perpetrators were SO proud of their accomplismnents re the new site that they refused to listen. Hospitals that routinely operated in the black were sacrificed on the altar for those perpetually in the red so their claims of economic necessity were essentially BS. Now the new site is astronomically over budget.
As usual with high paid, know-it-all administrative types with little or no medical experience, they were right and the people who knew the imminent results were not worthy of recognition beyond platitudes and window dressing. They hoped we peasants would go away by attrition but people like Sue, Joy and the Ontario Health Coalition persisted. Bless them! Most of these “administrators” have financial backgrounds and, even with that, they have created a financial sink-hole. Great job folks!
Things were thought out poorly from day one. Sites were closed with no contingency plan in place in spite of protests by citizens’ groups who KNEW what the results would be. Anyone with a synapse in their head would realize you cannot remove something that is a necessity without replacing it in advance. Ambulance costs soared, people were transferred to sites beyond the reach of their families and back-ups and overloading of remaining sites was disastrous. Again, well done!
Whether a new hospital will ever materialize remains to be seen and it will not be soon enough to prevent more medical disasters and potential deaths. With projects scrapped elsewhere, this new proposed site may vanish as quickly as it was announced.
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As a post note there was an interview with the Health Minister. Her comments were on West Lincoln’s cancellation that it is a time of restraint and there was limited money in the capital budget . She met the idea of a Southern Tier Hospital with all the enthusiasm of a trip to the dentist. Her reply to the plan of a single Hospital as “Ambitious” So a word to the wise for all the land speculators,,Tred with caution.
We still have an overwhelming need to set our existing house in order while we attempt to move forward.
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My Yellow shirt is still good to go.
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Smith is Just one big smoke screen to settle the unrest down and delay any action ::::((((((((((((((((
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Deb Matthews is now busy telling the good folks in Lincoln county that their new hospital HASN’T been cancelled. Seems it was all just a big misunderstanding: “Heavens, no! That’s not what I meant AT ALL. No, we’re just a little teeny tiny bit strapped for cash right now here in Queen’s Park, but we’ll get to it! Of course, we’ll get to it! We’d never abandon West Lincoln Memorial! Heck, we just LOVE you folks down there in Niagara West-Glanbrook so much. And we just feel so SORRY for you that your Mr. Tim Hudak…well, he just doesn’t seem to care for you the way me and Mr. McGuinty do.”
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A question? How the he… did this assinine bunch, politely referred to as Provincial Liberals, ever get elected …. again and yet again…???? There definitely is something wrong when this happens in a system that is supposedly labelled “a DEMOCRACY” especially when the blue collared folk of the Province and yes of the Country end up footing the bill. BUT you know folks what is truly sickening is many of our “Blue Collared” so called friends, neighbors and yes family voted these people into that position of power and they do so with loud and venomous denunciation of anyone who dares defy their brainwashing philosophy.
In my opinion Sue Matthews was assigned to the NHS first as a vice president of patient care (Over $200,000) mainly to pacify the ONA who was and had been censoring the NHS for Years and when that was accomplished she replaced Sevenpifer and is now basically the voice of the NHS. as President and CEO.
In my opinion Kevin Smith was assigned here to still the anger that has exploded here in Niagara and he did so by hearing people out and agreeing to some of the flack….BUT DID HE LISTEN? A new Southern tier Hospital??? I hope for the younger generation this becomes a reality….But my friends I do not and never did believe a word this Liberal government says. For they have screwed us for years and will continue to do so for as long as fools vote them into power.
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Joseph, I think there’s three factors that determines who gets voted in.
1. Actual governing ability:. We really don’t know who has it until they are elected. But typically the better they are at governing the more people they threaten and the quicker they get voted out again.
2. Policy position: The NDP, Liberals and PC parties all have their supporters and non supporters. Typically, the longer a party can avoid upsetting the majority of people the longer they stay in power.
3.Three card Monty.equilibrium: Hope springs eternal and after enough time parties not in power look attractive again.
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Thank You Matthew for you lesson in political expedience but at 76 years of age I think during those years I have seen politics in its rawest form and I am far from impressed with what I have witnessed.
Instead of a country for the people it is a country that has and is being exploited by groups who care naught about Canada and only about the bottom line on a profit and loss statement. This country was once respected throughout the world as a mecca of care and compassion and I have witnessed this during my travels abroad but our actions or lack of such has changed that ideal. .
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Joseph forgive my cynicism, my memories of Ontario government are of Oxford trained Bob Rae getting booed at the Sky Dome, the eternally vilified Mike Harris and now the out of control spending McGuinty. My observations are just based on what I’ve seen.
Personally, I think if we had stuck with the PCs in general, the economy in Ontario would be a lot stronger now and we afford things like better health care. It’s a democracy though and people wanted three terms of McGuinty.
What you’re saying is sad, however, and I wish for you sake, things could get better again. I think the best comment I ever heard on this topic was a warning from Benjamin Franklin, “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic” – Regards
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