If the "hospital improvement plan" issued by the NHS is approved, the health-care system for St. Catharines and the northern tier of the Niagara Region will be exemplary, but for Port Colborne, Fort Erie and Wainfleet (the southern tier) it will be an impending disaster.

The NHS plans within two to three years to shut down the emergency departments in Port Colborne and Fort Erie and turn the hospitals into "centres of excellence" for complex chronic care, which is a fancy way of saying convert them into nursing homes.

People in the southern tier needing medical help may be able to go to Welland or Niagara Falls for some things, but for many of the health services -- ie: cardiac care, cancer care, long term mental health care, obstetrics, women's health or pediatrics -- they will have to find a way to get to St. Catharines.

Anyone wanting to visit them will also have to travel to St. Catharines. Port Colborne General and Douglas Memorial Hospital will be pleasant memories.

How did this all happen?

Amalgamation of hospitals occurred in 2000 in the Niagara region and seven hospitals in the region were forced by the province to be operated under the auspices of the NHS.

On the NHS website they have a page that lists vision/mission/values." Listed under Our Mission, it is stated, "We provide equitable and timely access for people throughout Niagara to a wide range of patient-focused care and services."

From 2002 until 2005, the NHS spent a vast and inordinate amount of time and millions of dollars trying to figure out how to get the St. Catharines General Hospital and Hotel Dieu to consolidate.

The arguments went back and fourth, nobody knew what to do to resolve the impasse.

They finally agreed to let Hotel Dieu take over Shaver Hospital and a brand new hospital would be built to replace St. Catharines General Hospital.

At that point, the NHS, if it truly represented all the people of Niagara, should have said, "Wait a minute, a new hospital has not been built in all of the Region of Niagara in over 50 years and if we are going to build a new hospital, especially a state-of-the-art complex, which will specialize in a number of regional services, such as cancer, cardiac, mental health, obstetrics, gynecology and pediatrics, we should build this facility in the geographical centre of the region. That way it will serve all the people of the region and be equitable and sustainable long into the future."

Where was the "vision" of the NHS during this critical time period for decision making for the whole of the Niagara region? Consolidation and centralization are the current buzz words for making a health-care system function successfully in this new era of high tech equipment and professionally trained staff.

It is not too late for the NHS to get it right. While the tender has been awarded to the builder, the contract will not be signed for another two months and it is my understanding the building could still be built anywhere.

The NHS has not lived up to their mandate to give us equitable and timely access to health care. Therefore if they will not relocate their proposed new hospital to a location that services the entire Niagara region, the province should provide the southern tier a new health-care system that will look after their health needs in a fair, equitable and timely manner, which the NHS has certainly not done.

Pat Scholfield

Port Colborne