Grimsby’s hospital heroes are local
West Lincoln Memorial Hospital appears to have won a reprieve.
“We’re going to build you a new hospital,” said Ontario Premier Doug Ford during a media conference at the facility on Wednesday.
Despite the way the premier and his Progressive Conservative government colleagues, including local MPP Sam Oosterhoff, represented themselves as white knights riding in to the rescue, this appears to be good news for all residents of Niagara. In the announcement, the province said it will provide $500,000 for a planning study for a new hospital and $8.5 million for immediate infrastructure upgrades to the existing hospital. These upgrades are supposed to start in December.
As we’ve stated before, the Grimsby hospital affects health-care services across the region. The absence of those services would impact hospitals and urgent-care centres in other parts of Niagara.
On average each year, more than 25,000 individuals visit the emergency department of West Lincoln Memorial, with 2,500 of those being admitted. If the hospital wasn’t there, other facilities in Niagara and Hamilton would have to deal with those patients, at emergency departments already straining under their current patient loads.
The community served by the hospital has been fighting for years to have the Grimsby site rebuilt and has not been well-served by previous Liberal governments.
A rebuild was promised by the Liberals in 2005 but those plans were shelved seven years later as part of cost-cutting measures.
What’s notable in this week’s announcement is there doesn’t appear to be a firm commitment on provincial funding for the new hospital and no timelines for its construction, despite Oosterhoff saying he expects shovels to be in the ground sometime during the current four-year term of this government.
Wednesday’s announcement was brought about by a plan by Hamilton Health Sciences, which oversees operation of the Grimsby hospital, to temporarily move surgical and obstetrical services from West Lincoln to allow upgrades. These upgrades are necessary to ensure the hospital retains its accreditation. As a result of that plan, announced in mid October, hospital chief of staff, Dr. Gary Benson, resigned. He and other professionals at the hospital stated that removal of those services, on an even temporary basis, would result in the de facto closure of the hospital.
What’s happening with those accreditation-related upgrades was not made clear this week as they were not addressed. They still need to be done, but how this will be accomplished without moving services is unknown.
Deputy Premier and Minister of Health Christine Elliott assured residents services would not be removed, but did so with a caveat. Services will only move if required during the hospital rebuild, but she said such a move would be temporary. This seems somewhat similar to what Hamilton Health Sciences had already proposed.
We also had Ford, in a media release, taking a swipe at media coverage of the hospital debate. The release says: “… the Premier also confirmed that despite media reports, surgical and obstetric services will not be removed …” The media didn’t make up stories about the Hamilton Health Sciences decision to move those services on Jan. 1, 2019. The hospital’s chief of staff resigned before any media reported the plan. His resignation helped spark the coverage and community outrage and activism.
All in all then, there might be less here than meets the eye. But we should know early next year whether this week’s announcement was all flash and no substance, or really does represent a firm provincial commitment to the Grimsby hospital.
The real heroes here, however, are the residents of West Lincoln and Dr. Benson, whose commitment to their community health-care facility brought about this government response.