‘Boxing gloves are off’: Rally demands return of 24-hour urgent care

Posted: July 8, 2026

(July 7, 2026) By: Andrew Hawlitzky, Fort Erie Radio

Douglas Memorial Hospital turned 95 on Sunday, and about 40 people celebrated the birthday with cake, balloons and a demand that Niagara Health restore the Fort Erie site’s 24-hour urgent care.

Fort Erie Healthcare SOS, the Niagara Health Coalition and the Port Colborne Health Coalition organized the rally outside the Bertie Street site on July 5, exactly three years since Niagara Health cut urgent care hours at Douglas Memorial and Port Colborne General Hospital to 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

“We don’t only get sick during office hours,” said Heather Kelley, co-founder of Fort Erie Healthcare SOS.

Niagara Health plans to close the urgent care centre entirely when the South Niagara Hospital opens in Niagara Falls in 2028. Speakers warned that would leave a growing town of nearly 37,000 people to lean on ambulances and distant emergency departments.

Regional Councillor Tom Insinna said Fort Erie is the fourth-largest community in the region and is projected to reach 52,500 residents by 2050. He said the ambulance system cannot absorb the patients an urgent care closure would create.

“In 2025, our paramedics wasted 23,000 hours sitting in a hallway waiting for a patient to be taken care of,” Insinna said. “That’s what’s going to happen. That’s why the urgency to keep the urgent care open. It takes the pressure off.”

Insinna called on local politicians, Niagara Health and the province to return to the negotiating table. He said he will post a petition supporting continued urgent care on his social media and deliver the signatures himself.

“This is a fight, ladies and gentlemen. We cannot lose this fight,” Insinna said. “The boxing gloves are off, and we’re going to win this.”

Ward 4 Councillor Joan Christensen, the town’s lead on health care, said Niagara Health cannot claim a doctor shortage as a reason to cut urgent care. The town recruits its own physicians and helps pay their expenses, she said, so the staffing problem is already solved locally.

“We not only have an aging population, but we’re starting to attract a lot of families with children,” said Christensen.

Christensen said the town has hired Santis Health and a second consultant to study a healthcare hub at Douglas Memorial. The concept could keep 24-hour urgent care, diagnostic imaging, specialist services and alternate level of care beds, which serve patients who no longer need acute treatment.

Christensen recalled how her son once had a heart attack and received a quadruple bypass at a tertiary hospital in Mississauga. He died nine months later, still waiting for a specialist to diagnose his failing kidneys.

“The best care in the world…couldn’t save his life in the end because we don’t have the care in the community,” said Christensen.

During the rally, Lynn Pearson spoke about her experience as a registered practical nurse at Douglas Memorial’s complex continuing care floor, saying that shortened urgent care hours have harmed older patients the most.

“Just think, in the middle of the night, where are these elderly people going to go when they need help? They’re going to call 911 because they can’t drive up the road 20 minutes,” said Pearson.

Kelley said rallies remain necessary because some residents still do not know the closure is coming. She rejected the argument that low overnight patient numbers justify daytime-only hours.

Fiona McMurran, a Welland hospital advocate in her 20th year with the Ontario Health Coalition, said the last time she was at Douglas Memorial was in May 2009, at a vigil mourning an earlier series of staff cuts.

“You really need to be proud of yourself that this fine hospital is still going as an urgent care and that you are so strongly dedicated to keeping it that way,” said McMurran. “It’s not simply that you need it. You deserve it.”

Welland residents will face service reductions of their own once the new hospital opens in 2028, according to Niagara Health. McMurran said the Welland site will keep only cataract surgeries after 2028.

“If you’re having some kind of emergency, don’t think you’re stopping off at Welland. You’re going to have to go straight through to the South Niagara Hospital,” she said.

McMurran asked Fort Erie residents to carry that warning to their neighbours, arguing they have fought enough rounds of cuts at Douglas Memorial to see what is coming.

“Please do remember, community is important, but communities hanging together is really, really important,” McMurran said.

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