North Shore Hospitals in Focus at Queen's Park
Algoma Health Coalition joins day of action over hospital service closures
North Shore healthcare advocates Mary Jane Thompson and Albert Dupuis take their concerns to the legislature. Video by Shore Report.
Lake Huron’s North Shore region was well-represented at the May 14th Ontario Health Coalition Day of Action at the Ontario Legislature in Toronto. Some 150 concerned citizens and healthcare advocates from across the province shared buses to Queen’s Park, met with lawmakers, attended Question Period, held a televised media availability, and then took to the streets just above Toronto’s famed Hospital Row at College Street and University Avenue, generating a cacophony of supportive honking and sirens from passing traffic.
The action was designed to bring focused attention to the crisis of emergency room and hospital closures in communities throughout the province. Shore Report happened to be in Toronto on other business, and took in the lunchtime press conference and protest.
Thessalon resident Mary Jane Thompson talks to the press at Queen’s Park. — Image © Shore Report
Albert Dupuis from the Algoma Health Coalition accompanied Thessalon resident Mary Jane Thompson, who had some stories to tell at the press conference. Mary Jane spoke of being born at the older Thessalon Hospital (the now unused Water Street site), and about how the newer Thessalon hospital is likely responsible for the continued existence of both her husband and herself.
“When I had a stroke in 2003,” she told a full media centre, “the Thessalon Hospital saved my life.”
The Honourable Sylvia Jones, Minister of Health, at Question Period. — Image courtesy the Ontario Legislature.
Ontario’s Health Minister, Sylvia Jones, was the focus of attention at the May 14th Question Period, fielding concern after concern from Opposition MPPs about the state of Ontario healthcare. It’s safe to say her answers did not satisfy the Ontario Health Coalition gathering up in the public gallery. Asked later about the Minister’s many assertions that Ontario is investing greatly in hospitals and healthcare, OHC Executive Director Natalie Mehra asked in return why there is no commitment to stopping the rampaging closures.
OHC’s Natalie Mehra talks with Queen’s Park media. — Image © Shore Report
The OHC group included citizens and healthcare workers from Oshawa, Port Colborne, and Chesley Ontario. All of those communities have experienced temporary closures, overcrowding and hallway medicine and, in the case of Port Colborne, an imminent permanent urgent care closure.
Ontario’s Leader of the Opposition, Marit Stiles, took the Health Minister to task over ER and hospital closures. — Image courtesy the Ontario Legislature.
As it happens, Thessalon’s hospital experienced yet another staffing-shortage closure just one day before the Day of Action, a point that was not lost on the northern representatives.
“It’s been common practice for the Minister to say, ‘well that was a local decision’,” said Algoma Health Coalition’s Albert Dupuis. “The Minister should make a commitment to keep those hospital beds open.”
Our little hospital has a very large catch basin, from Iron Bridge to Desbarats and 129 highway. Encompassing rivers and lakes along with Lake Huron shores and Thessalon First Nation.
So many people in our community owe their lives and lives of loved ones to our little hospital .
What our government is really saying is that our lives are expendable, but boy they have no problem taking our tax dollars.