Fort Erie Town Council Delegation Statement
February 26, 2024
Heather KelleyFort Erie Healthcare SOS
Thank you, Mayor Redekop and Council, for giving Fort Erie Healthcare SOS the opportunity to update Council members and residents about our ongoing campaign to save not only Fort Erie Urgent Care but Douglas Memorial.
We have successfully reached thousands of Residents and they have been more than helpful in volunteering and continuing our work to keep Fort Erie Urgent Care open 24/7. Like some of the Council I have been around this crisis seeing the gradual closure of the hospital for well over 20 years. It was wrongheaded then and its wrongheaded now.
Update on Fort Erie Healthcare SOS:
1/ We participated in the Ontario Health Coalition’sreferendum last May and presented at Queens Park in a press conference about the need to keep Fort Erie Urgent Care open – the Coalition was able to present over 400,000 ballots from across Ontario that urged the Government not to privatize our healthcare
2/ We have sent over 4,000 names on a petition to Queen’s Park which asked to restore 24/7 Urgent Care at Douglas Memorial (we are waiting a response from the Provincial Government as required by legislation)
3/ We made a presentation for Niagara Health’s Board of Directors where they declined any questions or comments. We invited Niagara Health to attend our open Public Discussion on Healthcare and they declined.
4/ We held a public forum with over 400 people attending to discuss healthcare in Fort Erie and encouraged residents to contact the Provincial Government to let them know we want our Urgent Care restored- again with tremendous news coverage.
5/ We continue to encourage residents to write letters to the Premier and the Minister of Health. They are now available to send as a hard copy and on line at www.healthcaresos.net
6/ We have participated in rallies in Fort Erie, Niagara Falls and Toronto again to highlight the need to keep our healthcare publicly funded and provided and, in each instance, we have been able to promote the needs of the people in Fort Erie to return to 24/7 urgent care
7/ We have had several articles written in local newspapers as well as National News. Along with written articles you can now find us on YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook. We have been on CHCH, CTV, Global and CBC news broadcasts and we have been on local radio and podcasts.
We know that we are being heard in particular this week in the legislature our MPP asked the Premier about providing a Nurse Practitioner in Niagara on the Lake and instead of answering the Premier commented that he was disappointed that Wayne Gates would vote against the new hospital in his own region; but he was happy that Wayne gave out his telephone number and that he was able to tell the callers the truth. Well, I know that Wayne did not give out the Premiers number – I know it was Fort Erie Healthcare SOS and now I know that he is receiving calls and forced to recognize healthcare in our area. The Premier even had the audacity to call our MPP lazy, well he may be a lot of things to different people but he certainly isn’t lazy.
Instead of addressing the shortfalls in our area the government and Niagara Health continue to be satisfied that the new hospital in Niagara Falls is all they need and they believe it will be able to address everyone’s needs. We know that the reality is that by relying on this one new hospital they have put our community at risk of not being able to get the help we need when we need it. They are forcing people to hope for the best instead of getting help.
I have watched with interest how this government continues to chastise our MPP for speaking out and opposing the governments plan to close our Urgent Care and yet they continue to fail us here at home and around the province. Why have they not provided proper fundingor support?
Fort Erie Healthcare SOS has several of our local businesses and social groups that have supported our efforts to set up tables at their stores and events to get more signatures, more letters and more conversation about the need for our Urgent Care to remain open 24/7.
I am here tonight in front of Council to again appeal for your support to keep our Urgent Care open 24/7. I know that there are many things happening behind the scenes to bring new Doctors into our Town. That is a good thing and we fully support those efforts but we are concerned that in the mean time Niagara Health has dismissed Douglas Memorial and Port Colborne Hospital and they are continuing to ignore our efforts. We also need medical support at night that is not being addressed. This should not be acceptable to anyone in our town or surrounding outlying areas.
We were lucky enough this winter to only have a few major snowfalls, but that is certainly out of the norm for our town. We know that the EMS groups are working to provide guidance and direction to local people in regard to their need for an ambulance. EMT’s don’t necessarily have all of my medical records on file and cannot provide healthcare, they are there to respond to crisis situationsand to quickly ensure we get the help we need.
We also know that many people do not have readily available access to transportation to get them back and forth to Niagara Falls, Welland or St. Catharines and if the patient doesn’t have access neither do their friends and family. People that we need in a crisis situation should be able to help and support us
We need our town to stand up to Niagara Health and to let them know we do not want Douglas Memorial dismantled and we do not believe that relying on walk-in clinics is all that our townspeople require.
You are working hard to attract healthcare professionals to our town and it would be much easier if that Doctor or healthcare professional believed they had support and diagnostics available to them in the community you are asking them to set up in.
We need our Council and our public representatives to hold a public forum where we can have an open and honest discussion about the future of healthcare in our Town. Is your plan to dismantle and sell off Douglas Memorial, is the plan to simply rely on walk-in clinics, do you have a local plan to address the transportation shortfall and will they include around the clock hours. What is the Town doing to address the nursing shortfall and diagnostic shortfall.
We need our Town Council to openly declare that they will do everything within their power to keep our Urgent Care open 24/7 and further that our Council tell Niagara Health that they cannot close any more of our beds and services in Douglas Memorial. Enough really is enough.
We need to know that our efforts over the last twenty years have not been in vain and that we as a community will not only continue to push to open our Urgent Care but that we will push to have a full-service hospital for our people that includes: Emergency Care, Chronic Care, Acute Care, Palliative Care, Diagnostics, Surgeries, opening of more beds, Mental Health Services, 24/7 Doctors and medicine this is what our growing town needs.
We live on the border to the United States with commercial traffic and hazardous materials being shipped, we have summer residents, we have a fast-moving body of water that people can get hurt in, we have horse racing, we have swimming in quarries, rivers and lakes. We need a hospital!! Our lives matter and taking a twenty- or thirty-minute drive when you’re in a crisis is untenable when it does not have to be that way. I know in the far North they have much longer travel times and some requiring air travel. Our argument may be much different if we did not have the ability to open a full-servicehospital here but we do have the building now we need the push for ongoing funding and common sense says that closing our urgent care puts peoples lives at risk andcauses longer wait times and forces our residents to make life and death decisions by not having our Urgent Care open 24/7.
I know that Urgent Care is not Emergency Care but let me say this-if I am experiencing chest pains and not sure exactly what is happening; I am going to the closestcentre available so if something does happen, I have people with medical training that can assist and hopefully stabilize me enough to be shipped out to a centre of excellence that can perform the service I need. I am not going for a thirty-minute ride in the middle of snow storm or in the middle of the night to hopefully get seen in triage quickly enough that I survive.
We all know time is of the essence in healthcare whether its to prevent a heart attack or to prevent a burst appendix, or to clear an airway so I can breathe. Why is this so difficult for the decision makers to understand.
We have more and more people moving here; we have families and we have retiree’s, we have persons with disabilities, mental health needs and chronic conditions. We have resident’s that can’t afford to call a cab, that don’t have a car or the means to go out of town to get the help they need when they need it.
We may no longer be designated as rural because we have been included into Niagara Health’s terms of reference and although they continue to paint a pretty picture of what they are doing to invest in healthcare in our area it does not provide the healthcare that each and everyone of us has paid for here in our town where we reside.
We need to know what commitment if any has Fort Erie made to Niagara Health and what motions have been passed regarding Douglas Memorial or our Urgent Care Centre, local healthcare in general.
We need to know what efforts our Council and healthcare committee have made to save and restore access to healthcare in our community.
Our Recommendations
The Town Council needs to demand that:
The Ministry of Health and Niagara Health commit to a universal publicly funded and delivered healthcare system and that they immediately;
Fund and staff our underused public hospitals including Douglas Memorial; open their operating rooms; and patient rooms
Ontario should perform more surgeries during evenings and weekends using the rooms that have been closed down;
Ontario needs to add more beds; start by reopening the beds that have been closed and rooms that have been shuttered; including those at Douglas Memorial
Ensure tests and procedures are done timelier;
Increase access to home and community care; and
Improve public health measures and mental health access
Re open Fort Erie Urgent Care 24/7 and further Keep Fort Erie Douglas Memorial open, properly funded, maintainedand staffed to fulfill the needs of people in Fort Erie and throughout Niagara
I welcome your questions and comments
For further information please read the most recent report from the Ontario Health Coalition.
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