Campion steps up hospital fight

Ford government, however, is backing Niagara plan that would reduce services at Welland site

After meeting with Niagara Health administration Wednesday to discuss immediate and long-term plans for the Welland hospital site, the city’s Mayor Frank Campion is hoping to work with the provincial government to resolve concerns about the hospital’s future.

“My belief is that’s our best opportunity, to go to the top,” Campion said.

The province, however, is backing Niagara Health’s plans that will eventually reduce services at the Welland hospital site, despite the unanimous support of a symbolic motion received at Queen’s Park in April calling for the preservation of services there.

Campion said he discussed his concerns about the immediate impact the shortage of anesthesiologists is having on the Welland hospital, requiring patients needing emergency surgeries after 4 p.m. and on weekends to be redirected to other hospitals.

He said he also made sure hospital staff he met with know he is “not happy with the situation.”

Niagara Health Chief of Staff Dr. Johan Viljoen said hospital staff provided the mayor with “a detailed synopsis of the ongoing shortage of physicians, and specifically anesthesiologists, and avenues Niagara Health has explored to address the shortage.”

“Niagara Health explained that it is finalizing a comprehensive plan to enable us to maintain operating services, scheduled surgeries and orthopedic cases at the Welland site. We discussed opportunities to work with the city of Welland and Niagara Region in supporting NH’s retention and recruitment efforts and assist in addressing the primary care provider gap in Niagara,” Viljoen said in an email.

“Secondly, we spoke to the future plans of the Welland site once the south Niagara site is opened. Niagara Health explained that the master plan has not changed since presented to the city in 2017 — that the Welland site would remain open with 24/7 emergency services, eight to 10 observation beds with ambulatory services provided.”

Viljoen said both Niagara Health staff and Campion “committed to ongoing discussions and transparency.”

Campion said the long-term plans for the hospital no longer meet the needs of south Niagara’s growing population.

“Things have changed, and some for the better and some for the worse,” he said. “After the pandemic, it was a real wake-up call ... This isn’t the first and it won’t be the last pandemic we’ve been through where you have to put people in hospital and not be building Quonset huts in parking lots for people.”

Campion said the meeting “really gives me an opportunity to take all that information back and bring it to my council and others and figure out our best way to move forward.”

He said he’s confident the best way forward is to go to the province with his concerns, and “get them involved, because they have to fix this for us.”

“Now it’s time to push very, very hard, because it’s critical that we change the plans now so they can be integrated into the entire system as they’re building,” Campion said.

Hannah Jensen, a spokesperson for Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones’ office, however, said the government is currently continuing to back the hospital system’s plans. Those include building the new hospital in south Niagara Falls, as well as changes to existing facilities serving south Niagara residents.

“Our government is continuing our support of Niagara Health’s masterplan for the development of a new state-of-the-art hospital for patients and families in the Niagara region as part of our plan to build a better connected, more convenient health-care system for all Ontarians,” Jensen said in an email.

Niagara-West MPP Sam Oosterhoff, too, shared his enthusiasm for the hospital system’s plans, saying the new hospital in Niagara Falls “will consolidate and expand acutecare services, replacing outdated infrastructure with high-tech facilities and supporting better, connected care in the region.”

“Additionally, to meet growing demand in the region, the new hospital is planned to have 159 more beds than the combined total number of beds at the current sites of Niagara Health in Port Colborne, Fort Erie and Niagara Falls,” Oosterhoff said, referring to sites that are to be closed when the new hospital is complete.

Niagara Centre MPP Jeff Burch said he was disappointed by provincial support for the long-term plans, after watching Oosterhoff standing in the provincial legislature in April and speaking in favour of Burch’s private members motion that called for the preservation of hospital services at the site.

Despite unanimous support, the motion was essentially symbolic with no force in law.

Burch said he hasn’t given up. He said he is currently writing a letter to Premier Doug Ford, asking for an immediate meeting to discuss the concerns.

“We’re going to be continuing to make our case to the ministry and in the legislature when it resumes, to reverse this decision which is going to be very dangerous for folks in Welland and the catchment area of the Welland hospital,” he said.

Long-term plans for south Niagara hospitals have also led to concerns from Niagara Emergency Medical Services paramedics, who are already struggling with long delays delivering patients into the care of emergency departments.

Jensen said the province has developed a four-part strategy to tackle ambulance offload delays, focusing on returning ambulances to communities faster, providing timely and appropriate care in the community, facilitating non-ambulance transportation for stable patients, and increasing health care worker capacity.

She said a dedicated offload nursing program has been implemented at Niagara hospitals, with $800,000 in provincial funding.

But despite the offload nursing program being in place, Niagara Emergency Medical Services recently reported paramedics spent more than 33,000 hours waiting to deliver patients into the care of hospital staff last year.

Meanwhile, Jensen said Niagara Health’s recently released five-year strategic plan does not require ministry approval.