Local legion branch writing letter to Premier Doug Ford, pushing for 24/7 urgent care service in Port Colborne
The province is facing more calls to restore 24/7 urgent care service in Fort Erie and Port Colborne.
Members of Royal Canadian Legion Branch 56 in Port Colborne are writing a letter to Premier Doug Ford, MP Vance Badawey and MPP Jeff Burch, asking them to address Niagara Health's plans to reduce hours at the centres.
Last month, Niagara Health announced the urgent care centres in Fort Erie and Port Colborne will be open from 10:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. daily, starting July 5th.
The organization noted this was due to staffing shortages.
We spoke to Branch President Harry Hamilton, who says the community is worried about the plans.
"What happens from 11:00 p.m. through 9:00 a.m.? Illness and sickness and emergencies don't follow a time schedule by a clock...and by taking that out and shutting it down, and then that individual having to be transported to Welland or Niagara Falls or St. Catharines...that's pretty hard to look at."
He's also urging the province to address ambulance offload delays.
"What about staffing shortages of emergency services such as ambulances? What will be the wait time? That's a big area to start, transporting people to and from."
When announcing the decision, Niagara Health President and CEO Lynn Guerriero said the move was necessary to keep emergency departments open.
"The priority for us and the commitment we are making to the community is that we will do everything we can to keep our emergency departments open so those being Welland, Niagara Falls, and St. Catharines. In order to do that we have to have the ability to redeploys some of our physicians who would normally work overnight in the urgent care centres to work in our emergency departments."
The organization also said throughout the summer, emergency departments will be down 274 physician shifts, even with this change.
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