‘Our plan is to divert you from your plan’: Redekop
Fort Erie has until 2028 to ensure primary health care is available locally
Hundreds of Fort Erie residents have made it clear they are not happy with Niagara Health plans that include closing the town’s hospital.
In the first of a series of in-person community engagement meetings the hospital system is holding, residents gathered at Fort Erie Leisureplex Tuesday evening to share concerns about a three-hospital model for Niagara that will shutter hospitals in Fort Erie and Port Colborne when the new south Niagara hospital opens in 2028.
Chief among concerns is the loss of the urgent-care centre at Fort Erie hospital, at a time when the region is dealing with a shortage of family physicians.
“We need our urgent care open for a multitude of reasons,” said vocal health-care advocate Heather Kelley.
Mayor Wayne Redekop said despite successfully recruiting family doctors to the town there are still more than 7,000 people in his community who do not have a family doctor and rely on the hospital for primary medical care.
“We’re looking for a commitment from Niagara Health and the minister of health to ensure the continued operation of the urgent care centre unless and until a sustainable alternative is in place,” Redekop said.
But Niagara Health president and chief executive officer Lynn Guerriero said she could not make that commitment.
She said the hospital system is committed to helping municipalities ensure they will continue to have access to primary care after the hospital closes.
“Unfortunately, we don’t make
Chief among concerns is the loss of the urgent care centre at Fort Erie hospital
those decisions. Nor does the mayor,” she said, adding it’s up to Ontario Health and the Ministry of Health.
She said she has had “positive feedback” from Health Minister Sylvia Jones regarding efforts to ensure adequate primary health care programming will be available in Fort Erie.
“We’ve been working tirelessly to make that happen … We have five years to get there.”
She said she’s hopeful the site of Douglas Memorial Hospital will continue to be used for primary care services after Niagara Health no longer operates the facility.
In an interview, Guerriero said she cannot “make a commitment to something in 2028 that we will not have the ability to do.”
“The current plan has us consolidating our infrastructure and our teams across three sites, and that is what we have the mandate to do and that’s the plan we need to follow,” she said.
She said a recent $2.1-million provincial investment in the Niagara Ontario Health Team to enhance primary health-care access for as many as 7,600 patients primarily in south Niagara communities is a result of those efforts.
“It’s a good start, but we’re going to need more,” she said.
Access to primary care was one of several concerns raised by residents in a community where hospital services have been slowly diminishing for decades.
Joy Russell, 89, said she has been advocating for hospital services for 25 years, “and I will not quit.”
“We’re all disgusted with it,” she said of the current state of affairs.
Resident Ernie Schwarz said he, too, has watched local hospital services dwindle since moving to Fort Erie decades ago.
“If I have to drive to the new hospital 15 minutes away in good weather, that’s going to take me an hour if the roads are really crap,” he said.
Niagara Health executive team members advised residents concerned about adverse weather to call 911 for emergency care, because the urgent care centre now is not equipped to deal with emergencies.
But Kelley noted Niagara’s paramedic service has its problems.
“There’s a shortage (of paramedics) and they’re working under just as much stress,” Kelley said.
Redekop said there have been numerous petitions signed over the decades sharing “heartfelt responses from the residents of a community that have been deprived of something that was bequeathed to it by the generosity of one medical practitioner 95 years ago, Dr. William Douglas.”
He said he will continue to collaborate and co-operate with the Ministry of Health, Ontario Health and Niagara Health to find long-term solutions for the health-care needs of his residents, “but please recognize that collaboration and co-operation is not acquiescence.”
“Our plan is to divert you from your plan as it relates to Fort Erie,” he said.
Guerriero, also in an interview, said she understands the “legitimate and heartfelt concerns” of residents.
“I get that. It was not unexpected … I really empathize with them. I appreciate their advocacy, actually, especially the people who have been doing it for so long,” she said.
“But I think it’s really important for us to hear from people and try our best to explain why we’re making the changes we are. I truly believe, as do others, that these are the right changes. This is the right model for the best health care for the entire Niagara region.
“We have to modernize our health-care system and our hospital system.”
Niagara Health’s community engagement meetings continue Thursday in Port Colborne at Vale Health and Wellness Centre on Elizabeth Street at 6:30 p.m.