A Commentary by Doug Draper
What if one of Niagara, Ontario’s provincial representatives went out of her way to mail out a survey on health care to close to 50,000 of her constituents and more than 97 per cent of them chose not to respond?
Welland, Ontario MPP Cindy Forster finds out hardly anyone in her constituency is willing to participate in a health care survey
Apparently it does. And at least some inside the administration of the Niagara Health System – the decade-old body responsible for the management of most hospital services in the region – may find comfort in the fact that barely more than two per cent of the constituents served by Welland Riding MPP Cindy Forster bothered to respond to her request for information as she and her NDP colleagues continue to press the provincial government for more funding for hospitals.
The conclusion the NHS and Ontario Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty might very well come to is that, when it comes to restructuring hospital services, most of you out there in Niagara don’t care enough to spend a few minutes answering a dozen or so questions on a form.
The pathetic response to Forster’s survey may also have to do with the fact that we are in the sleepy days of summer where many people aren’t paying all that much attention to what is going on, and that many people, who once joined thousands of others in rallies to save our hospitals, have all but given up hope for any meaningful change by the NHS and its provincial government master. Whatever the reason, the NHS and provincial government win, and shame on you if you received one of these survey forms and did not take as little time as it might take to wedge a few commercials in during the Olympics coverage to fill it out.
I could hardly blame Forster if she now decided; ‘Well, to hell with it then. If people have a problem with hospital services in this community, they are on their own.’ I doubt Cindy Forster, a nurse, by profession, would ever take that position. I’m sure she will continue to fight for better hospital services in Niagara even if most of her constituents can’t be bothered joining her in a health-care survey. But it must be of some comfort to the provincial government and NHS anyway, that most of her constituents did not care enough to spend a few minutes filling out a survey form.
For what it is worth, of the slightly more than 1,000 constituents who filled out the survey, more than 40 per cent of them (a majority of them from Welland) want to see the aging Welland hospital site upgraded and about 25 per cent would opt for a new hospital for the southern tier.
It is hardly worth going on with the results since they represent such a pathetically small percentage of Forster’s constituency, so let’s just leave it like that.
(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post below, remembering that NAL only posts comments by individuals who also share their first and last names.)
Niagara At Large 
Well said Doug. I concur that such a long fight showed us no light at the end of the tunnel. Closures of services, wait times showing disasterous results and above all the promised review of the HIP got the royal kick in the ass and shoved out the door by Smith.
Our Parliamentary representative chose to ignore the opportunity for a similar survey and so Fort Erie residents sit envious of lost opportunity to again voice our dismay.
Best guess would be they already know our opinion of the NHS and would again dismiss this community as a dot on the map…..after all, they crap all over us and still we choose to vote in a Liberal MPP. Slow Learners are we.
LikeLike
Doug, we needed this. I confess that I don’t know what’s the matter with folks in south Niagara, particularly those in my city of Welland. Apathy doesn’t begin to describe it. I suspect a lot of people don’t have a clue about what’s going on with the NHS. Not that I can entirely blame them — their city council members are too busy beating each other up to care about keeping residents informed, let alone engaged, on the topic of the imminent loss of Welland’s hospital services. (Just as the south Niagara mayors are too busy trying to “play” Kevin Smith — and good luck with that, fellows, BTW. It’s pretty clear to the rest of us out here just who is playing whom.)
An independent Welland daily paper might have made a difference. It might actually have welcomed Forster’s effort to get input from residents on this important issue. Heck, it might actually have sent a reporter out to do a survey of its own. It might have had an editor who engaged seriously with the topic of the NHS, asking the tough questions, like “where’s the assessment of the HIP we were all promised, Mr. Smith?” Instead, we get straight reportage, with quotes from our municipal politicians spouting off as if they knew what they’re talking about…which they don’t.
In the end, though, it comes down to us. A healthy democracy requires the participation of concerned and informed citizens. If we don’t care enough to fight for what we need, then we get what we deserve.
JFK said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” It turns out that the enemy wasn’t the communists, after all.
LikeLike
That Liberal Representative was also NOT present when the vote for the HST was taken at Queens Park so what the h… does one think.?
He was at meetings and rallies but when asked why he still sat with the government and NOT as an independent or sit with Andrea he refused to answer?? To many he was a plant….
LikeLike
I am not surprised that so few bothered to fill out the survey. It was sent out by a New Democrat MPP – probably a very nice and well-meaning person, but the governing Liberals could care less and won’t pay any attention anyway.
I guess I am becoming more and more cynical about our health care (or lack thereof) and about our so-called “representatives” in the various elected bodies – city, provincial and federal. Is it just me feeling this way, or do others agree that they are almost all a bunch of useless twits.
LikeLike
If I got something in the mail saying that this was a survey about the hospital, I would have filled it out but since myself and many others I know never received anything like this in the mail, then it would be very difficult to express our opinions and to fill out any surveys about this topic….
LikeLike
To be fair, every receipt for every purchase from every damn chain in the world, is begging me to complete a survey. You can’t eat without being pestered to fill out a survey. I’m surveyed out!
On the other hand, we’re all expecting more bad news – perhaps people looked at the envelop and thought “This MPP wants campaign contributions” or “Another blah, blah, our party is saving Canada from recession and aliens – whatever!” and put it in the recycling.
Snail-mail or email – we’re all bombarded with the stuff. The poor response may not be due to apathy – just shell-shock from the pressure of advertising.
LikeLike
You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone. People don’t realize the importance of health care services until they need them. Like everything they don’t notice until it bites them in the ass and then it’s too late. A lot of my fellow Canadians are so pathetically apathetic that they make me sick, but boy do they ever bitch when it effects them. All of a sudden it’s of paramount importance.
LikeLike
Hi Doug,
The small percentage is not out of line with mail campaigns which typically get between a 2-6% response rate. Reading anything more into it would be choosing to change the response in to something that was not asked on the survey.
Let’s go through the economics of what she did. Normally this would cost about $50,000 to send a survey like this. If they sent stamped reply mail envelops that is $75,000. A 3% return is 1,500 people at a cost per reply of $33.33.
Now, if they had sent out paper copies of the survey to Emergency room and Doctors offices across the region it would have likely cost them under $10,000. People waiting in a doctor’s office or Emergency Room have time to fill out surveys. Now you would likely want to take into account the people are using the system when they give their opinion. I bet they could have gotten 50,000 replies at a fraction of the cost. To me the data would be more relevant.
I am not being critical of Forster desire to figure out the pulse of Niagara on the hospital system. Hopefully this advice will help her to gather the information for which she is looking.
LikeLike
Dear Doug,
As I read your July 31 NAL piece, “Thanks For Not Showing Enough Care… ,” I was quite irritated at your ‘effrontery’ for ‘chastising’ ALL of your readership – including me! – for ignoring Welland Riding MPP Cindy Forster’s call for input on Niagara’s past, present and future health care.
How I rationalized my own newly found apathetic negligence! From all kinds of angles: I’m too old (81) for this nonsense and ‘retired’ from former active concern (anyway, hardly anyone paid attention to Dr Gary Page, Glenn Hutton and me when we were concerned and protesting); I no longer even live in Niagara (even though my children and grandchildren do); and anyway, the place where I now live is well endowed with a top regional hospital and seems to hold the attentive and constructive ears of all the right functionaries and provincial politicians.
And so on … my own ‘sickening’ personal excuses.
Then yesterday, I drove from Owen Sound through Orillia to Peterborough and back – with you, Doug, and NAL in mind. Now each of those places on my route has a beautiful, almost spanking new regional hospital. Why lucky them? Why is Niagara so beset upon? It’s true that apathy in any ‘entitled’ society is rampant. But most people will act promptly, even protest, if unfairly deprived or put upon for long enough. But here’s a little-recognized medical-social fact: when a long-enjoyed Medicare entitlement is being removed or neglected the very people most immediately involved and affected, by definition, are far too sick to protest! And hardly anyone else who’s healthy and well will do it for them.
Hence, one reason for the gross public indifference experienced by Cindy Forster. She should know that indifference to her effort is not the sum of many personal or political slights. The healthy majority, young and old, sees no urgency and the sick are too sick. But for doctors there’s no excuse and no good reason not to get involved in some way in health care delivery issues. It’s a professional emergency and responsibility.
And you, Doug? I now realize and appreciate the career sacrifices you’ve made in the service of honesty. Your staying power in environmental and Medicare advocacy is amazing. What a great impassioned journalist you are. Your reliable efforts may not always counter public apathy in its sense of entitlement, but your reminders to all surely are an enlightening antidote to this old slacker.
The best to you, Bill Hogg
A Short Response from NAL publisher Doug Draper – I only want to say that when I was commenting on the apathy in this column around the stunningly huge percentage of people who did not bother taking a few minutes to fill out a survey being conducted by their MPP about their health care system, one of the last individuals I had in mind was Dr. William Hogg who, as a now-retired medical doctor, stuck his neck out many times, earlier on, to speak out against the Niagara Health System’s restructuring plans for our region’s hospitals. If more people of Dr. Hogg’s stature spoke out when there was still a chance to prevent some of the mess the NHS has made to our hospital services, we might not need to be having this conversation now. You did your best Dr. Hogg and you have nothing to regret if you take a break from all this nonsense now. Where are so many others who should be picking up the torch and marching on?
LikeLike
Doug
My own limited experience in government often led to surprise and disappointment when very few members of the public turned out for meetings. To be sure many were dry matters – setting water rates, roads budgets, and so on – that only after the fact took on greater importance in the public eye.
People today are busy and distracted with their attention pulled in many directions, and unless an issue is a current hot button good luck getting their attention.
That said, a mail in survey, while indicative of some opinions, would hardly yield an accurate sample. The same would be the case with one solely distributed to persons in Hospital or Doctor’s offices. The skewed population would give a necessarily distorted viewpoint.
An unbiased, independent sampling survey conducted by a disinterested third party would be the only valid method.
The only real benefit of Ms. Forster’s approach was, I fear, political – it certainly put her name in the public eye and demonstrated her support for NHS reform. That’s about it.
Perhaps a different approach might produce a better result next time.
( btw, I don’t reply to those ridiculous “who is on the right track?” puff pieces from Rob Nicolson either)
LikeLike
Right you are Linda…and I must say that most people are fed up to the ears with all the B.S. with the Hospitals or lack of…and of course alot of folks are done with the NDP and their less than stellar boss…who can’t save a drowning Hospital in his own riding…pathetic
LikeLike
I think you must mean the PCs and Tim Hudak, whose silence when the McGuinty Liberals announced that the West Lincoln Memorial Hospital rebuild would NOT be going ahead was not appreciated by his constituents…
LikeLike