(May 14, 2025)<\/p>\n
By:\u00a0Scott Miller, CTV News London<\/span><\/p>\n Brenda Scott from Chesley has a very plain message for Ontario\u2019s Health Minister.<\/p>\n \u201cRural Ontario matters too. There\u2019s no reason that we should have to accept compromised health care and less services than people receive in large urban centers,\u201d said the Chesley resident.<\/p>\n Scott also heads the Grey Bruce Health Coalition – her hometown hospital in Chesley has been closed on weekends and nights for more than two years. The neighbouring Durham Hospital moved to part-time emergency room hours a year ago. Clinton\u2019s emergency department has been only open during the day for more than five years.<\/p>\n According to Ontario\u2019s Health Coalition there were 1,117 separate emergency department closures in Ontario last year.<\/p>\n \u201cThose are unprecedented numbers – that is not getting better. That\u2019s actually more days of closure than we\u2019ve had ever in Ontario\u2019s modern history,\u201d said Director with Ontario\u2019s Health Coalition Natalie Mehra.<\/p>\n For the third May in a row, residents from small towns across Ontario converged on Queen\u2019s Park for a Day of Action to let the government know that they are fed up with ongoing ER closures.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were once called heroes, and now what about us? What about the patients? We\u2019re all forgotten again,\u201d said Registered Nurse Pam Parks, who works in the Lakeshore Health System.<\/p>\n The government said they\u2019ve never spent more on healthcare. $17.5 billion on family doctors and primary care across Ontario, with more being directed towards a new Rural Emergency Medicine Coverage Investment Fund to provide physician staffing in rural and northern communities on weekends and holidays.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite all of the money amounts that the minister keeps saying without any context, Ontario funds its hospitals at the lowest rate in Canada – and by far, we\u2019re billions of dollars below the rest of the provinces. We have the fewest hospital beds left of any province in the country by far. And you know, these emergency department closures are unprecedented. They are not diminishing,\u201d said Mehra.<\/p>\n While temporary or short-term ER closures have decreased this year long term ER closures like the ones in Durham, Chesley, and Clinton remain – with no end in sight and no sign of a return to 24\/7 emergency care.<\/p>\n \u201cThe people of Chesley and Durham demand from this government better than we\u2019ve been getting,\u201d said Scott.<\/p>\n