Rural Ontario takes the fight to end emergency room closures to Queen’s Park

Rural Ontarians took the fight to keep emergency departments open to Queen's Park on Wednesday, CTV London's Scott Miller has more.

Brenda Scott from Chesley has a very plain message for Ontario’s Health Minister.

“Rural Ontario matters too. There’s no reason that we should have to accept compromised health care and less services than people receive in large urban centers,” said the Chesley resident.

Scott also heads the Grey Bruce Health Coalition - her hometown hospital in Chesley has been closed on weekends and nights for more than two years. The neighbouring Durham Hospital moved to part-time emergency room hours a year ago. Clinton’s emergency department has been only open during the day for more than five years.

According to Ontario’s Health Coalition there were 1,117 separate emergency department closures in Ontario last year.

“Those are unprecedented numbers - that is not getting better. That’s actually more days of closure than we’ve had ever in Ontario’s modern history,” said Director with Ontario’s Health Coalition Natalie Mehra.

For the third May in a row, residents from small towns across Ontario converged on Queen’s Park for a Day of Action to let the government know that they are fed up with ongoing ER closures.

“We were once called heroes, and now what about us? What about the patients? We’re all forgotten again,” said Registered Nurse Pam Parks, who works in the Lakeshore Health System.

The government said they’ve never spent more on healthcare. $17.5 billion on family doctors and primary care across Ontario, with more being directed towards a new Rural Emergency Medicine Coverage Investment Fund to provide physician staffing in rural and northern communities on weekends and holidays.

“Despite all of the money amounts that the minister keeps saying without any context, Ontario funds its hospitals at the lowest rate in Canada - and by far, we’re billions of dollars below the rest of the provinces. We have the fewest hospital beds left of any province in the country by far. And you know, these emergency department closures are unprecedented. They are not diminishing,” said Mehra.

While temporary or short-term ER closures have decreased this year long term ER closures like the ones in Durham, Chesley, and Clinton remain - with no end in sight and no sign of a return to 24/7 emergency care.

“The people of Chesley and Durham demand from this government better than we’ve been getting,” said Scott.