Closure of 5 Niagara region hospitals highlights the threat to smaller community hospitals across Ontario

TORONTO, Jan. 14, 2014 /CNW/ - The announcement by Ontario's Health Minister of the closure of 5 of 7 Niagara region hospitals "is a warning bell to smaller Ontario communities signaling similar moves coming against their local hospitals" said Ontario Council of Hospital Unions/CUPE (OCHU) president Michael Hurley. " Despite all of the years of denials and obfuscation, the plan for Niagara is revealed to be a dramatic downsizing with the closure of 5 hospitals services ".

"This is the plan for smaller hospitals within driving distance of larger communities rolling out in the Niagara region. The worst part is that the communities are misled throughout the entire process", Hurley said. " We are very concerned about the absence of transparency and openness in the processes which led to this decision. Niagara will be left with a dramatically diminished acute care capacity, embarrassingly inadequate when measured against any developed economy."

The Niagara hospital closures have taken place despite the tragic loss of life of a young woman who bled to death en route to hospital, passing a closed ER en route. " The new model of care for Niagara builds this kind of human redundancy into its planning. There are great distances to travel across the Niagara region to get to the 2 hospital sites, some people in trauma won't make it and the planners know this. How a province that already has the fewest number of acute care beds in the O.E.C.D. could be closing additional beds and ER's in Niagara is incomprehensible" said Hurley.

In 2014 hospital staff represented by CUPE will be ramping up protests against the plans to close down smaller community hospitals and to shift many same day hospital procedures to private clinics.

SOURCE: Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (CUPE)

Michael Hurley
President, Ontario Council of Hospital Unions/CUPE
416.884.0770