NHS Supervisor’s ‘Final Report’ On Hospital Service Restructuring Is Bad Joke For South Niagara Residents

By Pat Scholfield 

Kevin Smith, provincially appointed supervisor of the Niagara Health System has released his final report….and it is basically a bad joke.

Niagara, Ontario citizen health care advocate Pat Scholfield

He recommends we build a new hospital in south Niagara and close all our other aging hospitals.Smith decrees that the new hospital be built in Niagara Falls. People of Port Colborne, Wainfleet and Welland do not consider Niagara Falls to be in the south. Look at a map. Niagara is shaped like a rectangle. The top two quadrants are in the north and the bottom half, the south. Niagara Falls is clearly in the north, but I will concede the more rural southern portion might just touch the dividing line. 

But this is a moot argument…because the chances of that new “south” Niagara hospital being built are slim to none. I am not a gambler, but I would bet a considerable sum we will not see this new hospital in my lifetime…and I plan on living another 20 years.

Clearly the offer of a new hospital for south Niagara is to pacify everybody as. Smith goes about his more important goal….and that is to fully and completely implement the HIP.

Remember that hospital improvement plan that was devised and released by the NHS in 2008. The first part of that plan was implemented as they closed the emergency departments, operating rooms and medical beds at Port Colborne and Fort Erie hospitals. Nearly 100 hospital beds were closed across the region and a similar number of frontline staff cut. But the bigger part of the NHS’s ‘Hospital Improvement Plan’ remains to be put into effect….and that is removing and transferring Obstetrics, Paediatrics, Orthopaedics and other inpatient services from Welland and Niagara Falls hospitals to the new complex in St. Catharines for their grand opening next spring. 

Smith is now saying that unless we are able to open the new site in the north and move the programs, Health Minister Matthews may not approve the new south Niagara hospital site. Clearly this is a veiled threat.

Don’t be fooled by this threat. Moving the programs to the new St. Catharines facility was their main intent when Smith was sent to Niagara to sort out the mess at the NHS.

Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati and Liberal MPP Kim Craitor are both thrilled with Smith’s proposal to build a new “south” Niagara hospital in  their backyard, Niagara Falls and appear to support Smith in co-operating in the transfer of Maternity/Child services to the new super hospital being contstructed in St. Catharines. 

I have a question for Diodati and Craitor?  What happens if the new “south” Niagara hospital does not get built? 

Once all these inpatient services are transferred from GNGH and WCGH, both hospitals will decline, deteriorate and gradually fold. This is what occurred in Port Colborne and Fort Erie when Mat/Child was removed. As many of our physicians realize, once moved, Mat/Child will never return and  GNGH and WCGH will go the way of the Dodo bird.

Will Diodati and Craitor then realize they have been led down the garden path? 

In his report,. Smith claims he has re-examined the HIP. If this is so, where are his reports? If he had truly examined the impacts of the HIP today and realized the increased ER wait times and the soaring EMS offload delays, he should have been hesitant to remove more surgical services that will lead to the closure of more emergency departments in Welland and possibly Niagara Falls. 

But his review of the HIP has not deterred Dr. Smith from going one step further than the HIP, as he is proposing the closure of all aging Niagara hospitals. Many of us believed these ultimate closures were the end goal of the HIP, but the NHS didn’t have the nerve to put this in writing at the time.

The final piece de resistance of Dr. Smith’s plan is he not only proposing closing our older community hospitals; he also is stating they must be sold at market value and the proceeds turned over to the NHS for capital costs …likely in St. Catharines. 

Considering these buildings were built by local donations, with no mortgage on them and when amalgamation took place in 2000, the NHS paid a token amount for ownership. Now they are going to walk away with tremendous capital gains, while they close our hospitals and we have to go to St. Catharines for hospital care.

Looks like the bad joke is on us.

Pat Scholfield is a south Niagara resident and long-time advocate for quality, accessible hospital services for all the region’s residents. She is a frequent contributor to Niagara At Large.

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