(May 14, 2025)<\/p>\n
By: Scott Dunn, Owen Sound Sun Times<\/p>\n
Health-care advocate and Chesley resident Brenda Scott joined an Ontario Health Coalition protest at Queen\u2019s Park Wednesday to rail against what they argue is a deteriorating health-care system.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the main message was that there are many rural, small rural hospitals in Ontario suffering the effects of cutbacks and closures, service closures,\u201d said Scott, chair of the Grey-Bruce Health Coalition, who spoke about Durham and Chesley hospital reductions.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd taken one by one, it seems like a small story. But when you look at the fact that it\u2019s a trend throughout the province,\u201d it\u2019s a problem the government must do more to fix,\u201d she said by phone as she made her way back home from Toronto.<\/p>\n
Opposition Leader Marit Styles in Question Period Thursday referred to the cutbacks at South Bruce Grey Health Centre, which runs hospitals in Durham, Chesley, Kincardine and Walkerton. Chesley\u2019s ER had the highest number of hours closed last year, she said.<\/p>\n
She asked Health Minister Sylvia Jones if she knew how many ERs closed in the last year, but Jones provided a summary of what the government\u2019s been doing to help health care.<\/p>\n
Jones said there\u2019s been a 31 per cent increase in funding since 2018, more than $50 billion in capital spending in 50 different communities, its Learn and Stay program and noted efforts to license international doctors and nurses.<\/p>\n
But the coalition says in Ontario there were 1,117 emergency department closures, 1,001 urgent-care centre closures, three obstetrics unit closures, one ambulance base closure, one inpatient bed closure, and one labour and delivery unit closure in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is worse than even 2023 and 2022. Prior to 2021 emergency department closures were so rare as to be unheard of,\u201d the coalition\u2019s news release said.<\/p>\n
Scott was one of four women who spoke at the event, including Natalie Mehra, the executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, which she called a non-partisan group. Mehra called for the government to require hospitals to have full-time ER\u2019s and keep inpatient beds.<\/p>\n
She also charged that the province\u2019s health minister shouldn\u2019t duck responsibility by saying it\u2019s hospital boards, not her, who\u2019s making cuts to their health-care operations.<\/p>\n
More than 140 members of the coalition attended Question Period in the Ontario legislature. The coalition held a televised news conference, then went to an outdoor awareness rally at College Street and University Avenue in Toronto.<\/p>\n
The event sought to continue to raise awareness about emergency room closures or limited hours, as has happened in Durham and Chesley hospitals locally, and lost in-patient beds, as happened in Durham\u2019s hospital, Scott said.<\/p>\n
Durham\u2019s emergency department went from around-the-clock service to 7 a.m. until 5 p.m. in March 2024, then lost all 10 of its inpatient beds to sister hospitals in Walkerton and Kincardine by June 3, both due to staffing and safety issues, South Bruce Grey Health Centre has said.<\/p>\n
Chesley hospital\u2019s ER is open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and is closed weekends, also due to staffing shortages.<\/p>\n
The coalition\u2019s \u201cday of action\u201d was held one day before the Ontario budget was to be presented.<\/p>\n
Others shared their local health-care circumstances at the news conference.<\/p>\n
Pam Parks, an RPN with nearly 40 years of health-care experience from Lakeridge Health in Oshawa, called conditions in her hospital \u201cterrible.\u201d Patients and their families are more aggressive out of frustration with wait times. \u201cI am telling you, from our frontline workers, we are there, we are showing up. We just need help from the Ford government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Port Colborne resident Barbara Butters said 10,000 people don\u2019t have a family doctor in a community of 20,000. The urgent-care centre is the only way for them to get health care, and every morning there\u2019s a line-up to get in during 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. operating hours.<\/p>\n
But travel to access health care in neighbouring communities outside those hours is impossible in winter some days, even if people have transportation, she said. \u201cSo without health care in our communities, we are really under the gun here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mary-Jane Thompson, is from Thessalon, where all the inpatient beds have been closed and the emergency department keeps closing. She said her Northern Ontario hospital saved her life when she had a stroke in 2003 and stabilized her husband\u2019s heart attack in 2013. That hospital today has been \u201cdiminished to what amounts to a transfer site.\u201d<\/p>\n
The coalition says emergency departments and urgent care centres routinely close overnight, on weekends and even permanently. Some close without warning.<\/p>\n
Fort Erie and Port Colborne urgent care services have remained permanently closed overnight and other hospital services in the Niagara Region are under threat, the coalition said.<\/p>\n