Minden, Ont., residents hope legal challenge will stop local emergency room from closing | 24CA News
With lower than two weeks to go earlier than the deliberate closure of an emergency division within the central Ontario group of Minden, residents opposing the transfer are hoping to take their battle to court docket.
Haliburton Highlands Health Services introduced in April that the ER at its Minden location would shut as of June 1 and all emergency providers can be transferred to its Haliburton website, about 25 kilometres away.
That has enraged some native residents, who’ve launched a marketing campaign known as “Save Minden ER.” On Friday, the group introduced a plan to boost $100,000 as a way to fund a authorized problem searching for an injunction and judicial evaluate of the consolidation plan earlier than it strikes forward.
“If we don’t get this injunction in place and that blue H comes down from the emergency department, we’ll never see another emergency department in the area,” stated marketing campaign spokesman Patrick Porzuczek, simply previous to a Sunday afternoon rally organized by the group.
“The whole catchment of Minden will have no hospital in the area for any reason to deal with heart attacks, seizures, strokes, injury, sickness. They will have to be transported … out of the community to receive emergency services.”
Porzuczek stated the group raised $50,000 — or half its final purpose — within the first two days of the marketing campaign. That swift response, he stated, demonstrates “the urgency that this community has to fight this closure.”
“Everybody is well aware with the way it’s set up that somebody is going to die,” he stated.
“There’s been no public consultation. Access to community care for emergencies is basically removed. A one-way cab fare from Minden to Haliburton is $110. We also have one of the highest rates of poverty in the area where a lot of people that are here are on social allowances that can’t afford to take that taxi cab ride.”
The workplace of Health Minister Sylvia Jones issued an announcement saying the consolidation of the 2 emergency departments would “provide more timely access to care.” Spokeswoman Alexandra Adamo famous the transfer “is not a closure.”
“This decision was made by Haliburton Highlands Health Services board and leadership as they are responsible for daily operational decisions,” Adamo stated in an announcement.
“The consolidation will ensure patients are receiving emergency care in the location that is best equipped to provide urgent acute care as the Minden site was used primarily to stabilize patients before being dispatched to larger centres and did not have any inpatient beds. The Minden site will remain open for some services and will continue to serve the community.”
HHHS president and CEO Carolyn Plummer stated in an announcement {that a} nursing and medical workers scarcity is behind the board’s determination. She stated with out consolidation, each emergency departments would have confronted non permanent closures all through the summer time, generally with as little as two hours’ discover.
“HHHS fought for as long and as hard as it could to keep both the Haliburton and Minden Emergency Departments open, but with no long-term solutions to the severe and persistent staffing shortages we have been experiencing for the past 18 months, we couldn’t go on any longer,” Plummer stated.
“It would have been almost impossible to properly communicate such short-notice closures to the community, especially to those who would be visiting for a short period of time. This is not a decision that was made lightly, and it was not one that anyone at the organization wanted to have to make.”
Asked throughout an unrelated press convention whether or not his authorities would attempt to preserve the Minden ER from closing, Premier Doug Ford stated Friday it’s essential to focus on that the Minden hospital goes to stay open.
“We’re working with the hospitals,” Ford stated. “They’re the ones that hire nurses within that community, but we always believe in giving the best service we can when it comes to health care right across the province.”
Porzuczek stated the premier’s feedback skirted the problem.
“What they’re calling a hospital is basically care for support for patients, but not for support in any emergency,” he stated.
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