Committees from Port Colborne and Niagara-on-the-Lake voted in favour of a revamped plan submitted by health care expert Dr. Jack Kitts, Fort Erie's committee did not.

The NHS board said while the Fort Erie committee was not unreasonable in coming to its conclusion not to support a plan which proposes to transform 24-hour emergency rooms in Fort Erie and Port Colborne into 24-hour urgent care centres, the board did not agree with the committee's decision.

"I'm not surprised by any of this," said Fort Erie Mayor Doug Martin in a phone interview Wednesday. "If they're approving and sending off what Dr. Kitts recommended and are not even considering the views of Fort Erie they are once again showing they have no respect for Fort Erie."

Martin said that level of disrespect has been shown since the inception of the NHS eight years ago. Since then the two south-end communities have had to constantly fight to keep hospital services.

The NHS sent the revised "hospital improvement plan" to the Local Health Integration Network Wednesday.

Port Colborne's mayor was equally disturbed by the revised plan, which incorporated community consultation and the key findings of Kitts.

"We put forward our own hospital improvement plan and we expect that plan to get equal consideration as any plan put forward by the NHS and Dr. Kitts," said Badawey, who didn't want to say too much without having seen the new plan put forward. "For them to not even look at the plan when approving Dr. Kitts's comments is a slap in the face to the city of Port Colborne and the people who worked hard to put it together."

The city sent its own plan to both the NHS and LHIN. The city's plan proposes to keep the 24-hour emergency department open as well some surgeries.

"The fight is not over until all 12 of those recommendations are implemented in Port Colborne," said Badawey.

The NHS board unanimously approved the revised plan, there was one member absent.

"We believe the direction put forward in the revised HIP will enable the NHS to deliver high-quality hospital services and make the best use of resources for years to come," said board chair Betty-Lou Souter in a press release. "Our board is fully committed to improving the quality of health care throughout Niagara for the long term. We will fully advocate to the LHIN to implement the final HIP in all communities."

The LHIN will deliberate of the new plan at a public meeting on Nov. 25 at Lincoln Town Hall, 4800 South Service Rd., Beamsville.

The NHS has also committed to creating an Implementation Stakeholder Council to guide the plans implementation.