By Doug Draper
Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews told Welland MP Cindy Forster the provincial government stands behind a decision to move maternity and other acute care services to a new hospital in west St. Catharines from other hospitals in Niagara “and we have no plans to reverse that decision.”
Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews insists hospital restructuring will mean better health care for Niagara residents
Matthews made that statement in the Ontario legislature this March 21 as about 60 Welland area residents looked on from the gallery while Forster told the health minster “they have come here because they are concerned about access to health care in their community.”
“The residents in my community are sick of being ignored,” added Forster of the continued lobbying residents in Niagara’s southern tier have done to keep services from being cut or completely closed down in hospitals in Welland, Niagara Falls, For Erie and Port Colborne. “The Welland hospital essential to the well-being of my community and we are watching as our hospital is being dismantled.”
The residents who travelled by bus to Queen’s Park this March 21 came armed with a petitions containing the names of about 20,000 Niagara area residents opposed to services like obstetrics and pediatrics being transferred from the Niagara Falls and Welland hospitals to the new west St. Catharines hospital which is opening this March 24. The residents have already seen other services cut or changed in ways unsatisfactory to them, including the conversion of emergency services at the Port Colborne and Fort Erie sites to urgent care centres more than two years ago.
The changes are all part of a so-called ‘Hospital Improvement Plan’ tabled by the Niagara Health System, the body established by the former Mike Harris Conservative government a decade ago to amalgamate and restructure hospital services in Niagara.
Matthews said the decision to restructure hospital services in the region has been reviewed four times by her Liberal government, by the Hamilton, Niagara, Haldimand, Brant Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), by an outside CEO for the Ottawa hospital system, Dr. Jack Kitts, and finally by provincial appointed NHS supervisor, Kevin Smth, and they have concluded it will lead to better quality care for Niagara residents.
“It is important that we continue to improve health care services in Niagara,” said Matthews, adding that she knows people in the region “are delighted” with the new hospital opening in west St. Catharines.
In recent weeks, Matthews was also quoted in the media saying the province has no plans in the foreseeable future to approve another new hospital for Niagara in the region’s southern tier given the huge capital costs (totaling hundreds of millions of dollars) of constructing such facilities.
NHS supervisor Kevin Smith tabled a recommendation for new hospital to serve southern tier residents a year ago and left it to the mayors of Niagara Falls and other southern area municipalities to choose a suitable site. They were split on two sites – one off Highway 140 in Welland and the other off the QEW and Lyon’s Creek Road in Niagara Falls – and Smith picked the Niagara Falls site.
The choice of the Niagara Falls site has caused a rift between at least some city councillors and residents in the Niagara Falls area and councillors and residents in the Welland and Port Colborne areas. Other residents have concluded that the rift is not worth it because it is unlikely a hospital will ever be built in the southern tier ‘in their lifetime.’
Matthews indicated this March 21 that she would meet with the Welland area residents who came to Queen’s Park following question-and-answer period in the legislature.
If any of those residents wish to share their take on what occurred at that meeting, NAL will be pleased to post them in the comment space below or as a separate post if one of the parties to the meeting wishes to produce a commentary of their own and email to NAL at drapers@vaxxine.com .
Niagara At Large is also posting the media release on this exchange from the office of Welland MPP Cindy Forster.
March 21, 2013
(Niagara At Large invites all of you who care to share your first and last names with your comments to join the conversation by sharing them below.)
Niagara At Large 
Excuse me but, what a hot, steaming pile of shit! Who died and made Matthews Queen? All of the “appointees” that made decisions re OUR health in S Niagara were hired guns and as phony as genuine imitation fur. Their agendas were set in cement before they got here. Kitts was a prime example. Look at the havoc he is currently causing in his own area of Ottawa with privatization of services, reduction of availability of procedures and lay offs. For all this he got a big time raise in pay.
Oh yes, and we folks in Niagara are just “delighted” with the new Taj Mahospital which may as well be in Timbuktu. Nothing like HER telling us how WE think! I suppose next they will mandate some kind of cerebral implants to make sure we agree with the opinions they demand we have.
A couple years back when a group from Niagara (as well as others from Guelph, Sarnia, London, Windsor, Cambridge and many other areas) went to the Royal York to protest hospital closings, Matthews went out the back door. What a coward. If she is so firm in her convictions she should have no fear of facing the public should she?
Meanwhile, Cindy, we appreciate your (likely futile) efforts. Besides, you are a nurse so what the hell would you know about health care?
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The fact that these people have made the claims that it will provide better health care to those in the Niagara Falls, Welland, Port Colborne and Fort Erie areas explains a lot with respect to how this government runs.
Could it be that you get the government post, the government contract or the high profile job if you tow-the-line and spew the Provincial government bullshit of the day.
These statements and assertions blatantly contradict common-sense and practicality to the extent that it is insulting.
I have to ask, the people have spoken in this region. The government is ignoring them. I thought we lived in a democracy where we the taxpayer can determine to a certain extent how our the taxes we pay are distributed and employed?
Man I wish we could put them all in a room……….. Just sayin…..
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I really have to ask who does Deb Matthews think she is? Maybe all those taxpayers in these areas should withhold the provincial portion of their income tax and property tax until they get the respect they deserve.
Maybe all Ontarians should!!!!! Until we all get the respect we deserve!!!!!
Sadly just sayin……..
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Greg Middleton, I couldn’t have said it better myself….All of the income and property taxes SHOULD be with held,,,,after all the government would freak out entirely if that was to actually happen….Maybe then, they will listen and respect their sources on income and that’s the people of this Province….You know what they say – Money talks and bullshit walks….
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I was up at Queens Park and Kim Craitor was the only Liberal that had the backbone to come and talk to his people. He was very saddened that Niagara residents had to make the trek to Queens Park and protest the Hospital cuts. They still had time to pick another location for a regional Hospital. They still hadn’t broke ground yet.They the Liberal government basically told us tough luck.! We have made up our minds. Kim spoke with me and he was genuinely upset at the way we were treated. Queens Park was in session and the big honcho’s stayed inside.
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This is the beginning of the end for the Ontario Liberal Government ,they have hammered the final nails in their coffin, the people have had enough of this nonsense our lives are in jeopardy.They made this mess and refuse too take responsibility and do the right thing, Deb Matthews you ignore us we will show our displeasure at the polls in a few more months. You will be on the outside and out to pasture where you belong.
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They wasted money moving power plants. The wasted monies could have supported health care for south Niagara.
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It always amazed me when I went to meeting, rallies and whatever, wherever concerning the total malfeasance of these goons in Queen’s Park and then to hear people who never showed their faces anywhere near this protests snarl and rant about the NDP. I do not have affiliation with any political party thus the truth matters more than the party….BUT…… At all these protests front and centre was Andrea Horwath and many of her NDP MPPs the “ONLY” person from another party was the sole Liberal Kim Craitor. At queens Park the only party that assisted the protestors was the NDP..Yet we constantly hear yelping and gnarling from the ones who think they are better than most of the peoples from Niagara Region South…
Tug Board Annie will follow her party line even if it means jumping off the end of the wharf into the Niagara Gorge and her lack of morals are not “NEW” from the Liberals in Queens Park. It was payment to Bradley and the many who profit and profited from the Taz Mahospital (nice word Linda) and its hellish location. When the head of Obstetrics and Pediatrics in conversation with me after a council meeting in from of Welland’s city hall stated the hospital is fabulous BUT IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUILT AT THE CROSS ROADS OF HIGHWAYS 120 AND 406. There cannot be “ANY vindication to those who pushed and succeeded in forcing this location on the peoples of Niagara.
As for Kevin Smith and Dr. Kitts there were enlisted to basically tell us to go to hell they will do whatever they please they meaning the NHS, The NHS Board, the LHIN and this poor excuse for a government who just followed the mess allowing it to happen.
Thank you people who went to Queens Park BUT like Grimsby your voice was NOT heard or wanted… Too Late Welland much too late where were you when Port Colborne and Fort Erie were fighting the good fight… I want to thank the councilors who took the time to make the trip to Queen’s park and who did not like what was happening in this City THEN……. .
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I wonder if she gets to go to the head of the line when she needs medical attention?
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Deb Matthews is a servant of the Liberal Party. She represents the Liberal Party and only the Liberal Party. Deb Mathews is no different than all of our elected officials of all of our political parties.
Some think that our elected officials represent the voter. Wrong! Those we elect legally become the representative of their particular political party. When the chips are down and that elected representative must decide whether to side with the voter who elected them or decide with the wishes of their political party, they are obligated to decide in favor of their political party.
Often, common sense has little to do with an official’s decisions when political expedience or financial concerns sway the political masters.
In this case of health care in Niagara, Ontario Health Minister Matthews is simply following the demands of the Liberal Party. Her insistence that the so-called ‘hospital restructuring’ will mean better health care for Niagara residents is just hypocritical hyperbole designed to mitigate the ire of the voter.
Without adequate push-back against improper decisions, the voter will always be at the mercy of any political party. However, in this case the Liberal party, predicated on inadequate handling of the economy, is blatantly telling Niagara residents to ‘eat cake’.
The questionable decision not to locate the new St. Catharines hospital in a more central location is compounded by the equally questionable decision to reduce health services for South Niagara citizens. Contrary to the governments assertions unwarranted time and distance does not make for ‘better health care’.
It would appear that we are faced with another tragic scenario mirroring the fateful St. Catharines hospital decision.
We are faced with another sales job that will not adequately serve the citizens of South and West of Niagara as can be viewed at: http://newsalertniagara.blogspot.ca/2012/09/the-brilliance-of-bureaucrats.html
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This is a typical scenario that is playing out across the province, only your region is seeing a bigger pile of it. The new reality is the shell game is over and all the promises made were no more that smoke and mirror tactics to fuel personal agendas not community obligations.
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