Enough is Enough – Let’s SAVE OUR HOSPITAL

Community Hospitals Matter it’s what stands between life and death.  It’s what is central to the well being of our communities.  We cannot continue to take these cuts and closures.  Anger does not even begin to cover the range of emotions felt in small town Ontario.  Felt in our hometown of Fort Erie.  We had a fully functioning hospital once upon a time and gradually we lost our services to provide for the larger city centers.  We were left with a few rooms for chronic, complex and palliative care and we were left with an urgent care center.  Now they want to take that away too.  In small rural towns across this province people are rising to say no more.  Doug Ford made a statement in 2019 that his government would not ignore rural Ontario

He says that they are making historic investments in health care.  Have you seen the public service ads put out by this government with your money.  They want you to believe that they are bringing convenient care…closer to home… for rural communities.  You know words can mean different things to different people, and I don’t know about you but in my home town they are not providing convenient care, closer to home and in community after community that have had their hospitals closed, ER’s closed, their urgent care centers closed or reduced to daytime only.  It would be nice if we could command ourselves to only seek care in the daylight hours but not even one of us can guarantee that.  We need 24/7 healthcare.  Healthcare is about lives saved, but I’m afraid that our current healthcare systems are more about policy and change than about saving lives.

The government announced an investment of over $108 million dollars to expand Ornge Air and we know this is an important investment for those in the far North, but it is also about those in small rural communities that need to get to a trauma centre.  This investment did nothing to help the person recently injured in Crystal Beach where speculation has it that an air ambulance was called but for some reason they would not or could not land in Fort Erie, so they had to drive to Niagara Falls by ambulance where the air ambulance went and picked them up to take them to Hamilton.  There is a heliport in Fort Erie at a helicopter manufacturing plant.  Please explain to the people in Fort Erie why this happened. 

Last year at the Rural Ontario Municipality Association Conference the Premier said that he is bringing convenient care closer to home and yet there is an unprecedented number of closures and families are broken apart when they should be close to each other.  This year as we speak the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference has just concluded and Mayor Redekop and Councillor Lewis had an arranged meeting with the Minister of Health Sylvia Jones to discuss our hospital and its potential for the Region and how we can be the solution to the long wait times in the larger ER centres throughout Niagara. We know that AMO has called on the provincial government to take comprehensive action on the opioid crisis including prevention, harm reduction, treatment and enforcement. Douglas Memorial could be equipped and manned to help meet this need. We know the homelessness crisis has also affected residents in Fort Erie and there are those requiring critical healthcare needs. Douglas Memorial could be equipped and manned to help meet this need. We know that ambulance service has not been allowed to bring patients to our centre for some time and yet face severely long wait times in the ER centres currently open and we know that some people requiring assistance do not fit the definition of Emergency and yet require immediate access to medical professionals and there are times even now even with paramedics able to perform some work in the field some people require additional service but must wait until they can contact their Doctor during regular office hours. We know that we cannot command our situation to only occur during working hours. Things happen in the night, and Douglas Memorial could help in these situations.

Fort Erie Healthcare SOS was started to raise awareness in Fort Erie and to save our Urgent Care, but this same scenario is playing out in town after town.  When your woken out of a sound sleep because your child is so sick there is no comforting them and their fever is so high you can’t bring it down and they’ve been heaving since 7 pm and its now 1 am – no urgent care, no doctor on call, three other children in the household and no car and no public transit and you want me to wake my neighbor to take me and my crying child and their siblings down the highway to sit in an overcrowded emergency room and wait 2, 4, 6 or more hours to be seen?  This cannot be acceptable and should not be acceptable.  Should I stay at home and hope they make it until the morning and if they don’t what then?

We are fighting back in Fort Erie to save and restore our Urgent Care – we held a public forum, we’ve held rally’s, we have signed petitions, we are sending letters to the Government, we have gone to all levels of Government and held meetings, we made a presentation with the Board of Niagara Health.  We have started a website at healthcaresos.net, we’re on facebook, X, Instagram, snapchat, TikTok, we have stood outside our grocery stores, markets and our Long-term care homes and social clubs to talk to our community.  We are willing to join forces with other communities across Ontario to say no more – Enough is Enough and we’re not going to take it anymore.  We demand that Fort Erie Urgent Care remain open 24/7 and that they move towards a full-service hospital – the people in Fort Erie deserve to have healthcare close to home and conveniently located so they can receive the care they need, when they need it.  It should be common sense that our Urgent Care can help to eliminate the overwhelmed Emergency Rooms.

Rural Health Care Matters it stands between life and death!!

We have spoken to many residents from Fort Erie, Ridgeway, Crystal Beach and even Stevensville, Black Creek and Douglas town. Of course, there are many that say they would prefer to go to a brand-new hospital or that Douglas is just too old. We say that should be the patient’s choice and we are not opposed to them building a new hospital in Niagara Falls. We all have a choice in Ontario what hospital we want to go to; and as to being too old Douglas currently services people and has been kept to current codes. We do not believe that old makes anyone or anything inoperable. Toronto General Hospital is celebrating its 112 birthday in its current location. We are a mere 94.

There are many that say that due to the Doctor and nurse shortage we just must allow all current graduates to filter into larger urban centres and the small hospitals should be willing to forgo any disadvantage this may have. We say this must stop. We understand that our governments have not planned for the number of people needed to properly take care of the sick and elderly that we have however this should not be a burden placed on the very people that need their help the most.

We have sought the help of the Town Council and they have responded by adopting a resolution to hold a portion of their pledge to the Niagara Falls Hospital until they could speak with the Minister of Health to see if they could propose a solution that would satisfy all needs. Once they have met the Council will regroup to look a solutions going forward. Our job as SOS is to continue to promote 24/7 healthcare for our community and to preserve the few services remaining at Douglas Memorial to eventually expand that care in the future for our growing population.

The other issue that people often don’t consider when we are talking about Douglas Memorial is how it is available even during the times when the QEW is closed during our freak winter storms. It was available during the blizzard of 77 for those willing to come in by snow mobile; and even though we hope this does not occur any time too soon, but our highway was closed due to a winter storm in 2022 where a Doctor trying to get to his shift at Douglas had to call for help because the road was impassable.

Niagara Region is solely responsible for transportation issues and for EMS (emergency medical services). The current fleet of 41 ambulances cover the entire Niagara Region with a population listed in 2021 as 500,000.

People without the resources to get around are frightened – they don’t have the money to travel in and out of Fort Erie daily when a loved one is sick. There are many people that can no longer drive at night and others on a fixed income and never thought they would need a transportation budget just to get they healthcare they or their loved ones need. Many people are spending a great deal of time on the road already and the closure of Douglas Memorial just puts more vehicles onto the roadway.

Douglas Memorial was fully staffed for years as many of you are well aware of and staff was able to be recruited locally. I am sure the health committee has reviewed the number of nurses and staff that we may have lost to the US, to private clinics or to other health care facilities across the Province due to COVID.

We want to make sure that no one is left behind. We know just as the people of the far North know it is not always so easy to just pick up and move. When this area is where you were born and raised, where you invested your time and energy then it is worth your time and energy to help make life manageable right here at home and to help ensure that we have the services that we need close to home and family.

Family Doctors and their care teams only have so many hours in a day and most operate on an appointment system and we know not all calls can wait until they open or when the next available appointment is. Walk in clinics may fill a void provided that it does not displace you from your position with your family Doctor. Some people have been told that they could lose their family Doctor if they go to a walk-in clinic and that this does not include Urgent Care or Emergency Care, so most have tried to keep the Doctor they have by utilizing the hospital. If every person in town had their own Doctor it would still not mean that our hospital is not needed as often the Doctor requires more time to monitor your condition to be sure of their diagnosis and treatment and this requires overnight stays in a hospital. When children are sick in the middle of the night and only one parent is home and doesn’t drive and telehealth is telling them they need to be seen and the closest ER room is 30 minutes away with an estimated wait time of 6 hours – well I’m sure many of you have done the math; people are going without the care they need often times to be much sicker when they do finally find medical help which requires even longer stays.

Some people have suggested we take Douglas Memorial over again as a community-based hospital, which means we would have to ensure staff can stay and even more hired; it means new administration and a Board would have to be found; it means financial resources must be sought and systems upgraded. Others have suggested that we collaborate with other small hospitals that are currently operating, and we share resources like Haldimand War Memorial Hospital in Dunnville. Right now, there are 140 public hospital corporations in Ontario with over 400 hospitals.

We know that Niagara Health with a $26 Million deficit has no interest in maintaining or keeping Douglas Memorial in fact they haven’t for some time; it was in 2009 that the closure was first proposed.

We know that our Hospital was run independently before through a Board of Directors and with members of Council and citizens. We believe the least that should be done is an impact analysis to look at the feasibility. We would like for all stakeholders in our Town to submit a proposal to the Minister of Health to take over Douglas Memorial Hospital the day Niagara Health stops operating it. We still have an auxiliary, service clubs, volunteers and growing care and concern for treatment close to home all hours of the day and night. This is the kind of connected care that only small hospitals can provide. Nurses, practitioners, community clinics, Doctors and other clinicians may want to entertain the thought of working in a smaller community-based healthcare system rather than a large city-oriented corporation.

We believe it is worth consideration, and it will bring peace of mind to so many of the citizens that liver here or that may visit here!

Our proposal will boost the health, wealth and economy of the Town of Fort Erie and will entice doctors and nurses to return to a quieter way of life where they can practice medicine close to home and family. We can be the answer to the overcrowded conditions in the current hospitals, by allowing triage to send patients that are waiting into the Fort Erie site to be taken care of. We can also become part of the internships and training facilities required for all of the professionals in the healthcare field.

We need willing participants in our local businesses and healthcare community to help make this happen. Business plans are submitted to the Minister of Health in October each year.

We have an opportunity to make a real difference for our community. We are looking for continued support from the Ministry of Health and we are looking for them to deem Douglas Memorial as our community hospital. We need your help to show our commitment to support a hospital in Fort Erie.

We support the new hospital in Niagara Falls and we know that like the hospital that was built in St. Catharines they will serve many and that will include many of our residents as well. The problem is that there will be people that fall through the cracks, that go without treatment, that can’t get to the new hospital even by ambulance and whose family will not be able to support them while they heal.

Will you join us in sending a loud and clear message to fund Douglas Memorial and to provide the access to care that we need when we need it. We have Facebook, X and Instagram, lawn signs, window decals to help show your support or you can go on our web site sign the petition and send a letter directly to Premier Ford and Minister Jones to Save Our Hospital; www.healthcaresos.net/

Your comments, questions and concerns are always welcome email us at: fo******@***********os.net.