For years it has been an uphill battle to get doctors to set up practice in Niagara Falls. What if the only real hospital accessible to them was on the far side of St. Catharines? How many doctors would coming to the Falls then? I would imagine the other affected communities to be in the same boat.

As to the location chosen for the new hospital, could they pick a spot any harder to get to? Adjacent to one of the largest, busiest, fastest-growing new shopping areas on the side of St. Catharines, farthest from every other community, is not the place to put a new health centre meant to service the entire region. Somewhere adjacent to Hwy. 406 near Brock University or as far south as Hwy. 20 would be a more sensible location and far easier for the vast majority of people to visit.

To do otherwise would in effect be denying health services to the great number of people who would be unable or unwilling to run the gauntlet of highways, stoplights and big box store traffic in an area unfamiliar to them to reach the chosen location.

I'm sure this is not the intent of NHS, but their inflexibility makes one wonder what their agenda might actually be.

Rob Douglas, Niagara Falls