Fort Erie Healthcare SOS, June 6, 2024, VOL. 5 ISSUE 20
We had thousands of people turn out for the mass rally in Toronto to defend our Public Healthcare and it was awe-inspiring. We had 22 Fort Erie residents and another 27 from St. Catharines, Port Colborne, Welland and Niagara Falls. We filled our coach line. First stop was at Nathan Phillip Square where the marchers were gathering before the walk down University Ave. Others who could not make the walk then went directly to Queen’s Park where we gathered and enjoyed the music while we waited for the groundswell of healthcare activists to join us.
Watching from the front of Queen’s Park while they came up the front lawn of Queens Park was simply amazing and to look back and still see people on University Avenue making their way forward was such a testament to the amount of people fighting to defend public healthcare in Ontario.
So many of our local residents in Fort Erie said they were so impressed and had never been a part of something so inspiring. It was hard to believe that so many people showed up all fighting for the same cause.
We had speeches from Natalie Mehra from the Ontario Health Coalition and she thanked everyone for coming out in such great numbers. There were members of the legislature from the NDP, Liberal and Green Party who spoke about the need to keep healthcare public. We had Doctors speak and local Coalitions including our own Sue Hotte from the Niagara Health Coalition and Heather Kelley from Fort Erie Healthcare SOS. The mayor of West Grey Kevin Eccles spoke about the closure of the hospital in Durham and his calling for a state of emergency to protect the people in his area due to the lack of healthcare. We had major Labour leaders lend their support from ONA (Ontario Nurses Association), OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employee’s Union) and the Ontario Federation of Labour and each committed their help and asked for the community to support their workers as well.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I was so impressed at how organized the event was and how awe-inspiring it was to know that we were all there to support each other. Some told stories of how fearful they were to lose their hospitals, their ERs and their Urgent Care. The closing of some diagnostic imaging and laboratories even ICUs have been affected. One common theme was that we are in this together and that the Provincial Government needs to turn their minds eye to the plight of the people on the ground, in small and rural areas as well as in large city centres. It is not enough to say they are building brand new hospitals when there are so many people left outside of that loop looking for help and right now it is those small and rural hospitals that are being closed or temporarily closed at night that are causing the problem.
We need our Urgent Care in Fort Erie restored to 24/7 and we need our hospital to stay open permanently for our community. The time to do the right thing is now. If the government has hired 17,000 nurses and 2,400 Doctors in the last year, where are they? What plan was put into place to help alleviate the number of people needing to use the Emergency Room because they don’t have a doctor? Fort Erie and Port Colborne Urgent Care centres could be used to help to prevent overcrowding in St. Catharines and Niagara Falls. We can be the answer. Not everyone in our communities drive and that creates a transportation problem for many people. If Niagara Health cannot manage to care for everyone then it is up to the Province to make sure people are not falling through the cracks.
The Government can stop funding private clinics and put the money back into the public healthcare system. Will they do the right thing for everyone or do they only take care of their own?
