Divorce NHS: local physician
Published on
Jul 25, 2008
Fort Erie and Port Colborne should divorce the Niagara Health System, says a local physician.
Dr. Christian Proulx, who runs a family practise in Port Colborne, said the NHS is "too big" and needs to be dismantled. With a South Niagara system in place, residents in the south souldn't have to continue losing services to larger municipalities.
"Everybody in south Niagara would get the care they are paying for," he said. "They won't have to give up services so the people in St. Catharines can have better service."
He said regionalization of health care has not been kind to people in the southern tier of Niagara.
"They've robbed us to balance the budget in the north end," he said.
The NHS unveiled its hospital improvement plan last week. It calls for the closure of emergency rooms in Port Colborne and Fort Erie within the next five years. Emergency services will only be offered in Niagara Falls, Welland and St. Catharines.
Proulx said many of his patients in Port Colborne are single moms, many who have asthmatic children. In the summer months, when asthma attacks are at their highest, he said it is not uncommon for his patients to be rushed to Port Colborne General.
"If the closest ER is in Welland or St. Catharines, the sad reality is they won't be able to make it there,"
he said. "In my opinion, the NHS is going to have an increased mortality rate."
St. Catharines General Hospital reported the third highest mortality rate in the country over the past three years.
Proulx said the plan makes health care "blatantly inaccessible to (south Niagara)."
Port Colborne's mayor doesn't completely agree with the call for a southern system, but he does agree there may be no room in the NHS for Port Colborne.
As early as next week Vance Badawey plans to reconvene a health-care committee that was struck in 2002, the last time the city fought the NHS to keep its hospital. The mayor will instruct the committee to look at a few options when it comes to the hospital's role in the Niagara Health System.
"If the NHS doesn't need us, we don't need them," he said.
The committee will look at the possibility of having a self-governed hospital which reports directly to the LHIN as one option. The other option, involves teaming up with Hamilton Health Sciences.
"Port Colborne hospital was built to last," Badawey said. "When we operated as our own hospital we were on top. Since then, the NHS has taken away our hospital.
"At the end of the tunnel is the demise of our local hospital. We won't let that happen."
Fort Erie resident Joyce Lea, who worked to keep the hospital open last time it was threatened, said it's up to the people to "stand up and say we aren't going to take this."
She said she fears Douglas Memorial will become a "dumping ground for people they don't want in the other hospitals."
Lea said she believes the NHS has always wanted to close the smaller hospitals and that Fort Erie residents should fight to take their hospital back.
"I think they should break it up. Give us back our hospital -- we were operating in the black while all the others were in the red."
Former Fort Erie mayor Wayne Redekop said he believes we can't undo history by taking the hospital back;.Instead, his focus is on convincing the LHIN the town needs core medical services.