{"id":4545,"date":"2016-04-21T13:35:46","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T17:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/?p=4545"},"modified":"2020-05-08T18:33:12","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T22:33:12","slug":"hospital-referendum-pressed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/hospital-referendum-pressed\/","title":{"rendered":"Hospital referendum pressed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(April 21, 2016)<\/p>\n<p>By: Allan Benner, The Tribune<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">A provincewide referendum could make it \u201cpolitically impossible\u201d to close hospitals, says an Ontario Health Coalition board member.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">Doug Allan said a referendum the coalition is planning will \u201cmake it so that these cuts, and the threatened closure of the Port Colborne hospital, can be stopped \u2014 to make it politically impossible for that to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">Allan, a Toronto area resident, told a group of about 80 people at the Guild Hall in Port Colborne Wednesday night that \u201csaving your hospital will be like a beacon for the rest of the province of what a community can do that stands up for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">Niagara Heath Coalition chair Sue Hotte said details about a referendum will be released during a media conference Monday, but the initiative will include ballot boxes set up in public locations in communities across Ontario, such as businesses, municipal offices and physician clinics and workplaces.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">Although petitions bearing tens of thousands of signatures submitted to the provincial government in recent years have failed to stop the province\u2019s plans for Niagara hospitals, Hotte said the scope of the referendum should allow it to garner far more response.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">Hotte said it will have a profound impact on the provincial government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">Allan said similar provincewide campaigns have had significant impacts in the past, such as stopping health-care privatization plans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">He said the most recent referendum the Ontario coalition organized pertained to allowing private clinics to conduct some hospital surgeries, \u201cand we collected 100,000 votes on an issue that I don\u2019t think is quite as well known as the cuts to our hospitals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">\u201cThis is a much bigger issue, and I think we can get an even bigger vote,\u201d Allan said. \u201cWe need to collect the votes, send them off to the legislature, we need to do it collectively right across the province and send a very loud message. I think we can send an extremely loud message in Port Colborne because of the circumstances that we\u2019re looking at here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">The meeting was organized to discuss the provincial government\u2019s plans to close hospitals in Port Colborne, Welland and Fort Erie and replace them with a single new hospital in Niagara Falls.<br \/>\nNiagara Health System in an e-mail to The Tribune Tuesday said Angela Zangari, executive vice-president and project lead, and NHS president Suzanne Johnston \u201chave been across all NHS sites over the past few weeks sharing the preferred designs for a new south hospital at Lyons Creek and Montrose roads and a new ambulatory care\/urgent care and long-term care development in Welland at King and Third streets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">\u201cWe believe it is important to share information with our staff, many of whom have been engaged in planning activity for the projects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">\u201cDr. Johnston is committed to working with staff to discuss planning on a regular basis. In addition she will be continuing to meet with community leaders to plan forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">At Wednesday\u2019 night\u2019s coalition meeting, several residents shared concerns about access to health-care services, including Aubrey Foley.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">\u201cI don\u2019t want to offend anyone from Welland, but I live in Port Colborne, my hospital is in Port Colborne and this is where it should remain,\u201d the 71-year-old said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">He said his city of 19,000 people has a \u201cdeplorable walk-in service for health care.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">\u201cIt is not acceptable. There is no reason for it to be the way it is today,\u201d he said, while noting Dunnville, a town of 11,000 people, has a \u201cfully functional hospital with free parking.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">\u201cIf Dunnville can do that, we can do this very easily,\u201d Foley said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">Former mayor and regional councillor Bob Saracino said he will do whatever he can to save the Welland hospital, but the community must also work together to keep the urgent care centre running in Port Colborne.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">\u201cWhen it comes to health, we must be one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">Saracino said health care \u201cis not a privilege, but it is a fundamental right that we have under the Canada Health Act.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">While Hotte said she agrees Niagara Falls needs a new hospital, \u201cit should not be at the expense of people in Port Colborne, Welland, Wainfleet, Pelham \u2014 over 94,000 people losing access to hospital services.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">\u201cNo way! We need to keep the hospitals open and access to services,\u201d Hotte said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><a>ABenner@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\">Twitter: @abenner1<\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.wellandtribune.ca\/2016\/04\/21\/hospital-referendum-pressed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Click here for original article<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(April 21, 2016) By: Allan Benner, The Tribune A provincewide referendum could make it \u201cpolitically impossible\u201d to close hospitals, says an Ontario Health Coalition board member. Doug Allan said a referendum the coalition is planning will \u201cmake it so that these cuts, and the threatened closure of the Port Colborne hospital, can be stopped \u2014 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ohc-in-the-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Hospital referendum pressed - Ontario Health Coalition<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"(April 21, 2016) By: Allan Benner, The Tribune A provincewide referendum could make it \u201cpolitically impossible\u201d to close hospitals, says an Ontario Health\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/hospital-referendum-pressed\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hospital referendum pressed - 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