Urgent-care centre vital to Fort Erie, mayor says
Public comment on Niagara Health’s three-hospital proposal starts online today
While the Town of Fort Erie supports the building of the new south Niagara hospital in Niagara Falls, it should not come at the expense of timely urgent care further south.
That’s the message coming from the town’s political leadership as well as health-care advocates, who are calling on Niagara Health to restore full-time hours at Fort Erie’s Douglas Memorial Hospital and commit to keeping it open once the new hospital opens.
Construction started last year on the south Niagara hospital at Montrose and Biggar roads in Niagara Falls. It is expected to wrap up in 2028, after which the plan for the Fort Erie site is for programs and services to be transitioned to the south Niagara and Welland hospitals, and for it to transition to primary care.
Last July, hours of operation at Niagara Health’s two urgent-care centres — the second is in Port Colborne — were scaled down to 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Niagara Health is in the middle of a public communications campaign about its plan for a threehospital model in Niagara. A presentation was made during a Niagara Region council committee-ofthe-whole meeting on Thursday and a series of community engagement sessions are planned.
Those sessions start with an online format at 9 a.m. on Tuesday.
The rest will be in person, starting at Fort Erie Leisureplex on March 19, followed by March 21 at Port Colborne’s Vale Health and Wellness Centre, April 4 at Meridian Community Centre in Pelham, April 9 at St. Catharines’ Merritton Community Centre, April 15 at Niagara-on-the-Lake Community Centre, April 16 at Welland International Flatwater Centre, April 23 at Gale Centre in Niagara Falls and on May 27 at Fleming Memorial Arena in Beamsville.
Meanwhile, advocates continue to push for Niagara Health to reconsider its centralization plans and
for the province to ensure adequate health-care funding in the region’s smaller municipalities, including Fort Erie.
During a recent meeting of Fort Erie town council, Heather Kelley, of Healthcare SOS, laid out that group’s long history of fighting for proper health care in town and called on council to support those efforts.
“We need to know our efforts over the last 20 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 will include emergency care, acute care, chronic care, palliative care, diagnostic services, opening more beds, mental health services, 24-7 doctors and nurses, that is what our growing town needs,” Kelley said.
In response, Mayor Wayne Redekop reiterated the town’s commitment to health care, noting it’s a top priority in Fort Erie’s 2022-26 corporate strategic plan.
This was followed by a media release March 1, which detailed those efforts, including multiple meetings with Ontario’s Health Ministry and Niagara Health, the latter being called on to commit to keeping the urgent care after the south Niagara hospital opens “until an alternative is provided for these vital services for patients needing immediate health-care services or those who are not rostered with a physician.”
Reached for further comment, Redekop provided a written statement saying the town has been working with the ministry and Niagara Health on long-term solutions to the town’s primary care needs — for which urgent care is included.
“The urgent care centre at Douglas Memorial is a fundamental part of the primary health-care safety network in Fort Erie,” he said in the release.
“In that context, we have been advocating for the continuation and enhancement of service at the UCC in Fort Erie until appropriate alternate solutions have been identified and implemented, however long that may take.”