Health coalition holds meeting for St Joseph Islanders

An expert panel convened by the Ontario Health Coalition will visit Desbarats next week as part of a 12-community provincewide tour to consult on the future of rural and northern hospitals.

The panel will be at Johnson Township Arena on Friday, March 26 from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

It will be also be at the Quality Inn in New Liskeard the following day, from 1 to 4:30 p.m.

"The OHC is inviting the public and local organizations to bring their concerns and recommendations about their local hospital services to a non-partisan panel, made up of well-respected experts," the coalition says in a news release.

Panelists will include:

- Dr. Claudette Chase, Sioux Lookout.

- Roger Gallaway, retired MP (Liberal) Sarnia-Lambton.

- France Gelinas, MPP, NDP health critic, Nickel Belt.

- Dr. Tim Macdonald, Petrolia.

- Natalie Mehra, director, Ontario Health Coalition.

- Barb Proctor, retired RN, Picton.

- Kay Tod, retired RN, Burk’s Falls

The following are excerpts from the OHC release:

************************* The public is invited to watch and participate in the hearings, and there will be spots available for those who have not booked presentations in advance.

In order to book a spot to make a presentation (seven minutes), please contact us as soon as possible and leave us your phone number(s), the town at which you would like to present, and any preferred times.

Contact us at 416-441-2502 or email [email protected]. For written submissions, please send them in by the date of the local hearing nearest you.

Background on democratic public hearings for small, rural and northern hospitals

Hospital funding has failed to keep pace with inflation over the last two years.

This has thrown the majority of Ontario’s hospitals into deficits which they are required to eliminate by law, even if it means cutting needed services.

Small and rural hospitals have been particularly hard hit.

Entire floors have been closed.

Emergency rooms have been shut down.

Programs like physiotherapy, chiropody and labs have been privatized.

Services like birthing and mammography have been closed.

Ontarians are being forced to travel further and further away, without the transportation systems and supports to access hospital services.

The impact on patients includes longer waits as regional hospitals are swamped with more patients and inadequate resources, higher infection rates, new user fees for patients, loss of services, long waits.

In some cases, entire hospitals are being closed down or threatened with closure.

In response to a major protest of more than 1000 people at the Ontario Legislature in April, the minister of health announced a panel on rural and northern health care.

It was understood that this panel would be an independent look at the crisis faced by small and rural hospitals.

However, when the panel’s mandate was finally released last fall, it did not even include the word “hospital” and made no mention of the crisis our local hospitals are facing.

It is no longer clear what the panel is going to do.

There are no public consultations until after the panel has finished its work.

The panel has refused to meet with any patient’s groups, municipal groups, community groups, the health coalition, unions and other key stakeholders.

In response, the OHC has formed a non-partisan panel to hear from Ontarians in 12 regional public hearings.

The coalition will create a report from the hearings to be released to the media, brought into the legislature, and given to the minister of health and the premier.

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