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No rally planned for Northumberland Hills Hospital
Posted: January 18, 2016
(January 18, 2016)
By: Valerie MacDonald
NORTHUMBERLAND – Northumberland Hills Hospital is not alone in the continuing restructuring going on in these public institutions across the province.
“We are now entering the ninth consecutive year of hospital cuts – the longest stretch of cuts in Ontario’s history,” states a media release from the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) about a series of rallies underway this week.
“Every service cut is privatized, subject to user fees or moved far from our home towns,” it continues.
The rallies which began Monday in Hamilton and conclude Feb. 1 at Queen’s Park are to tell MPPs that “cuts have gone on far too long, vital patient services are threatened, and entire hospitals are at risk,” the release from the OHC, including a chapter here in Northumberland, states.
There isn’t a rally planned at NHH at this time.
The rallies are in partnership with the Ontario Federation of Labour and come on the heels of two significant reductions in nursing staff at hospitals last week: 126 RNs at Windsor Regional Hospital and 36 at Grand River/Kitchener.
The results of funding not even keeping pace with inflation results in cuts, OHC executive director Natalie Mehra said in an interview.
Ontario now has the fewest number of active beds in hospitals in all of the developed countries in the works, she said.
“We are now at the very bottom,” Mehra remarked.
