It was the sort of phone call that every mother dreads. Last week, Linda Smith (not her real name) received a call from her son. He was crying and in pain. Through the tears, she heard him say he’d been injured in a crash.

“All I heard was this person crying, ‘Mum, mum, this is Tom. I’m hurt real bad, and I’m in jail,’” said Linda. “He was crying, just sobbing.”

Linda was concerned, but also confused. Her son said he was in Quebec, but was due to go for delicate back surgery, and should not have been driving that far. Had the accident further injured his back? And why did his voice sound not quite right? The person on the other end had a ready answer.

“He said, ‘Mum, my nose is broken, my face is all smashed up. I can only talk to you a few minutes, there is someone here who wants to talk to you,’” Linda said. The phone was turned over to a man identifying himself Walter Green, a lawyer. Green explained that Linda’s son had been arrested for drunk driving in Quebec. He had been injured in the crash, and needed bail money to be released. Linda was dubious about the story. Why was her son in Quebec? Why was his voice different? Why wasn’t he in hospital? The lawyer seemed to have a reasonable answer for her every question.

“They went out drinking and his buddies got so drunk they couldn’t drive. (He) got behind the wheel because he’d only had two beers. But he had an accident and the air bag went off and really, he said his face is really in bad shape and his nose is broken,” said Linda.

Green told her that he wanted to get her son out of jail as fast as possible, but neither her son nor his friends had the money for bail. He needed her to send $1,400 through Western Union. The sum increased as the conversation continued, with Green claiming Smith also had to cover a $300 service fee, and then $100 more for a private ambulance service back to Toronto. He made Linda swear secrecy, saying if she told Western Union the money was for bail she would be charged more service fees. He even forbade her to consult with her daughters, claiming client confidentiality.

“I kept questioning him, but every time I questioned him, he would come up with an answer,” said Linda. She went to the local Western Union, where she told the clerk the money was for a friend in financial need. The payment was a severe blow to her finances.

“I’m on a fixed income now my husband is gone. I watch every penny. I had to just about empty my bank account,” she said. On her way home, she stopped in at Clausen’s Towing in Grimsby to have her car serviced. The worry and anxiety over her son and her doubts about the situation spilled over. Noel Pendlebury of Clausen’s is a family friend, and he noticed that Linda seemed to be in distress.

“Thank God for Noel. My husband and I have known him since he was a little boy. I came in to get my car fixed and as soon as he saw me, he asked me what the matter was. As soon as I told him, he said ‘You’ve been scammed.’ He got on it right away,” said Linda.

Pendlebury knows the scam from previous experience. A relative had been taken in by it, and some of his other customers.

“Believe it or not, this was the second one this month I’ve stopped. I had another customer frantically talk to another staff member here, and they asked me what I thought. I told them, don’t pay it. It’s a scam,” he said. “It’s the third one I’ve heard of in Grimsby in the last two and half months. In the last two years, it’s number five I’ve heard of.”

Pendlebury contacted Western Union on Linda’s behalf. Once they heard the details of the transaction, they confirmed it was a fraud and managed to stop the money transfer. Linda was able to confirm with her daughters that her son was healthy and at home.

“If only I had called my daughters. My oldest daughter had been in touch with him, texting him all day,” she said. Linda admitted to feeling foolish that she had fallen for the scam. However, experts in fighting fraud say Linda has no reason to feel badly. She responded in good faith to a cry for help and fell victim to a plausible con artist.

“These guys are really good at what they do. You wonder how anyone could fall for it, but hindsight is always 20/20,” said Det. Sgt. Paul Spiridi, the head of the Niagara Regional Police’s fraud unit. “They’re well versed in what they are going to say to these people. Automatically the urgency gets their heart racing, and before they know it, the money is gone.”

Spiridi said seniors are often targeted. Con men can look up personal details about relatives on Facebook, or from newspaper articles and obituaries. No matter how plausible the story sounds, Spiridi said there are three clear warning signs that a call for help is a fraud.

“The secrecy of the call, asking for a money transfer, and the sense of urgency,” he said.

Western Union agents are trained to recognize bail scams, so victims are told to keep silent about their reason for sending the money. Keeping silent also prevents them from checking with other family members. Spiridi said the best thing to do is confirm the details of the call. No matter what the caller says, there is no hurry to send bail money.

“Take a rest. Even if the person really was arrested and they’re calling for help, take a few minutes, call around to verify, no matter what they ask. Call to verify where they are. The majority of the time it is going to be scam,” he said. “They make it sound urgent, but really, if it’s true, and they have been arrested, they aren’t going anywhere. It takes a while to process paperwork. It’s never do or die, you have time to take a look and verify the information.”

After several years of progress, it appears some provinces are slipping in their quest to reduce the time it takes to receive a number of benchmark medical treatments.

Part of the slide can be attributed to hospitals being overcrowded by elderly patients with dementia — a problem that can only get worse as the population ages, said a report from the Wait Times Alliance issued Tuesday.

“Canada needs a national dementia strategy that formally integrates the functions of primary care, specialist care and home-care services with a strong focus on keeping seniors in the community, out of the ED (emergency department) and out of hospital,” the alliance recommended in its 2012 report.

The report showed a decline in performance for patients receiving care in the five government-identified priority areas — diagnostic imaging, hip and knee replacement, radiation for cancer, cataract surgery and heart bypass surgery.

Prince Edward Island received an F for knee replacements and a D for hip replacements.

Manitoba earned a D for hip and knee replacements and cataract surgery.

Ontario scored the best with As across the board and no significant changes in wait times.

“Unlike the past several years, the 2012 results show a worsening of performance with regard to patients receiving care within the pan-Canadian benchmarks set by governments,” said the report.

“Although some provinces have shown improvement, the overall results point toward lengthier waits.”

What’s worse is that most of the figures compiled by the alliance only relate to specialist care and don’t account for the time it takes to see a general practitioner or to have medical tests completed after visiting the doctor.

In its contribution to the report, the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology concluded that wait times for so-called GI procedures are up significantly in the last seven years.

“Total wait times for Canadians, considering all gastroenterology indications, have increased from 2005 to 2012 and are now 30 days longer than they were in 2005,” the association said in an email.

The total wait time for a person seeking a colonoscopy, for example, is 279 days. The target wait time for the procedure is 60 days.

In another paper released Tuesday, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute called on Ottawa to reform the Canada Health Act to allow for extra-billing by doctors and experimentation by the provinces with for-profit medicare.

The paper entitled, First, Do No Harm: How the Canada Health Act Obstructs Reform and Innovation, urges the federal government to remove what it calls the “shackles” the act imposes on health care.

Serious reform can be achieved while retaining the core principles of universality and portability now found in the act, said authors Jason Clemens and Nadeem Esmail.

“In order for Canada to proceed with serious, positive, health-care reform, the CHA must be revised,” they concluded.

The paper compares Canada’s medicare system with those in other developed nations that provide universal health care.

Among the differences they found were that “all other universal health-care countries allow private, parallel, health care, where patients can choose to purchase health-care services outside of the public system.”

A large majority of those same countries allow for delivery of universal care through privately owned and operated surgical facilities and hospitals.

The Canadian Press

From Globe Life, Health & Fitness, Ask a Health Expert, Ask the Doctor

The question

My 79-year-old mother lives alone, five hours away from me. She refuses to move closer – she’s stubborn and determined to live independently – but I’m afraid her health (and mind) are going. She hasn’t seen a family doctor in decades, and refuses to do so. What can I do?

The answer

This is a challenging situation that requires a great deal of sensitivity. The answer to this question will depend upon your mother’s capacity to make decisions. It is fair that you are concerned for her mental and physical well-being. But if she is able to make safe decisions for herself, there is little you can do to influence where she lives or whether she sees a doctor as it is her right to make these decisions.

This being said, if your mother is not caring for herself and not making safe decisions in terms of her health, you can consider requesting a formal capacity assessment.

Capacity is a legal term relating to a person’s ability to understand information that is relevant to a decision and to appreciate the consequences of that decision. It is not a clinical condition or a diagnosis. It is based upon a legal assessment and there are offices located in every province that can let you know where to seek help and how to find a qualified assessor (most are physicians specifically trained to make such a judgment).

Capacity is complex because it can vary based on the area of concern and it is possible to be capable in one area and not another. For example, someone might struggle to understand complex medical decisions, but still be capable of making informed choices about their financial or social activities. If someone is deemed incapable, a substitute decision maker can be put in place to make decisions in the area that the person has been judged unable to do so for him or herself.

It sounds like you care about the well-being of your mother and you have valid concerns. My suggestion would be to discuss your concerns about your mother’s well-being and safety in a non-threatening manner because it can lead to a great deal of tension between family members. From your mother’s perspective, she has likely established a home for herself and does not want to lose her independence. It is important to honour and respect her wishes but also address your concerns honestly.

By bringing up this concern in a non-confrontational manner and framing it around her safety, your mother may be open to discussion.

While having this discussion, you may also want to see if your mother has taken steps toward ensuring her decisions are respected further down the road by assigning a power of attorney or a substitute decision maker. Stress that it’s important to you that she choose someone who can represent and respect her wishes if a time were to come where she could no longer do so for herself. She could also include her choices in a will or personal directive so everything is clear and legally documented.

Hopefully this is something that can be worked out in a respectful manner. If you do need support, however, in finding someone to assess capacity, check in with your local provincial authority or her family doctor.

FIRE. April 14, 2008- Fire tears through the Rowanwood Retirement Residence near Huntsville The fire left little of the home’s north end. The building has been declared a total loss Angee Pell, Special to the Hamilton Spectator Source: Angee Pell, Special to the Hamilton Spectator

Residents of many seniors’ homes in Ontario would die if a fire broke out because their buildings are short-staffed and lack sprinkler systems, according to a preliminary study by top provincial fire chiefs.

Roughly 24 retirement and nursing homes in 10 cities — including London, Kitchener, Niagara Falls and Huntsville — have been tested in mock evacuations and most failed, said Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs spokesperson Jim Jessop.

“We have a legal and moral responsibility to make sure the residents are safe,” said Jessop.

Ontario fire chiefs are frustrated with the province’s refusal to force homes to install sprinklers that would protect the elderly. The fire chiefs say their study is the latest effort in a long campaign to convince Queen’s Park.

The fire chiefs have researched the issue and found that Ontario seniors’ homes have the worst fire fatality record in North America with 45 deaths since 1980.

Four private members’ bills and three inquests have all recommended sprinklers. A fourth inquest into a deadly 2009 fire at an Orillia retirement home will begin on April 16. The fire killed Vera Blain, Genneth Dyment, Hugh Fleming and Robert McLean.

Residences built after 1998 must have sprinklers but the devices are still not required in 4,000 older “care occupancies,” which house more than 200,000 seniors and other vulnerable people across Ontario, including the intellectually challenged. The frail and elderly are more likely to die in fires than any other age group, experts say.

The fire chiefs have lobbied rigorously for sprinklers but Madeleine Meilleur, Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services, holds a different view.

“Sprinklers are not the only answer. They are important, but nothing will replace the staffing levels and how they are trained in case of fire,” Meilleur said.

Fire experts disagree. There are never fire deaths in homes with sprinklers except in the rare case where the person who caused the fire is overcome by injuries, said Sean Tracey of the U.S.-based National Fire Protection Association.

Sprinklers will activate within several seconds after detecting heat at 73.8 C, Tracey said. Only those who start the fire, say by smoking a cigarette while hooked to an oxygen machine, are at risk of serious injuries, he said.

Jessop, the fire chief association’s spokesperson, said employees cannot compete with automatic sprinklers.

“No matter how well-trained and well-meaning staff may be they are not firefighters and they will always react unpredictably in a real fire when their own lives are at risk,” he said.

Homes that fail mock evacuation tests are hit with legal orders under the Fire Prevention and Protection Act, telling them to hire enough staff to be able to safely evacuate 24 hours a day — or install sprinklers.

Some refuse to make changes, citing the expense of sprinklers or extra staff. Sprinkler installation costs roughly $3 a square foot. That translates to $40,000 for a 30-person home or about $110,000 for a 155-person home.

Many homes appeal the orders to the Ontario Fire Marshal’s Office or the Ontario Fire Commission. Cities such as Niagara Falls have so far lost three appeals, after homes argued that adjusted fire safety procedures satisfied evacuation times.

Niagara Falls did win one case — involving Cavendish Manor retirement home, the scene of a massive 2008 fire that injured three residents.

Even when fire code orders are lost on appeal, officials believe it was worth the effort. In each Niagara Falls case, the home ultimately decided to install sprinklers.

In the May 2008 fire at Cavendish Manor retirement home in Niagara Falls, it took less than six minutes to hit “flashover” time. None of the 80 residents died but three were seriously injured.

It was pure luck no one died, said Jessop, who is Niagara Falls’ deputy fire chief.

In 2010, a year after the Orillia fire killed four residents (and left two brain dead), the government began a consultation on fire safety. Meilleur said she expects the report will be released in June.

Torstar News

If you’re caring for an aging parent, or helping a senior or anyone over 50 with his or her taxes, here are some things to keep in mind.

Longterm Care  While Ontario’s most urgent problem is the thousands of people stuck on unbudging wait lists for a nursing-home bed, barriers to care can also arise once a senior secures a placement.

LONG-TERM AND HOME CARE:

KEY FINDINGS

• One in four residents of long-term care facilities in Ontario reported worsening symptoms of depression or anxiety;

• It took 173 days on average in Ontario to move a person from the community to a spot in a long-term care facility. In the Champlain LHIN, the wait time was 314 days. In the HNHB LHIN, it was 215 days, fifth-highest in the province;

The Hamilton-area LHIN finished significantly worse than the provincial average for seven of the 27 variables specific to long-term care.

FULL STORY

There are 200 beds in St. Patrick’s Home, a long-term care residence not far from Carleton University in Ottawa.

There were 395 people waiting for one of those beds to become available the last time St. Patrick’s CEO Linda Chaplin checked her list.

That’s more than just an arithmetic puzzle.

“It is heartbreaking,” said Chaplin.

The sad truth is that some of the people on the waiting list will get a spot in an Ottawa cemetery before they get a bed in St. Patrick’s Home.

A couple of kilometres away at Grace Manor in Ottawa’s west end, it’s the same story — a 128-bed facility filled to capacity, with hundreds more on its waiting list.

Even the good-news announcement that St. Patrick’s Home is in the midst of adding 86 new beds to its facility is tempered with the reality that those beds are but a drop in the bucket compared to the demand for spaces.

“They will be filled and it’s not going to make much of a dent in the systemic need,” Chaplin acknowledged.

Across the Ottawa-area Champlain Local Health Integration Network, which extends from Deep River to Cornwall, thousands of new long-term care beds would be needed just to soak up the excess capacity and help unclog acute-care beds in Ottawa hospitals.

On any given day, Chaplin said, up to 150 hospital beds across Ottawa are occupied by people who are waiting to be placed in a long-term care home.

The Champlain LHIN had the longest overall wait times of Ontario’s 14 LHINs for finding long-term care spots for people, based on data compiled for the Spectator’s comprehensive report card of LHIN health performance.

It took 209 days on average for Champlain LHIN residents to be placed in a long-term care home, nearly double the provincial average of 113 days. In the Central West LHIN, which includes Dufferin County and Peel Region north of Highway 401, the placement time was 47 days, the best in Ontario.

The Hamilton-Niagara-Haldimand-Brant LHIN had an overall wait time of 178 days for placement in a long-term care home, which was the third-longest in Ontario.

When it came to the amount of time it took to move patients specifically from acute-care hospitals to a long-term care bed, the Hamilton-area LHIN had the second-longest waits in Ontario at 107 days, nearly twice as long as the provincial average of 58 days.

Across 37 different variables related to long-term care and home care, the Hamilton-area LHIN ranked 11th of Ontario’s 14 LHINs.

Only the Central West, Waterloo-Wellington and North Simcoe-Muskoka LHINs fared worse.

The Toronto Central LHIN ranked first.

Among the Spectator’s findings in its report card on long-term care and home care:

• Nearly four in 10 long-term care residents in the Hamilton-area LHIN reported increased difficulty in performing everyday tasks, the highest rate in Ontario;

• About one in four home care clients in Ontario reported that their pain is not well-controlled;

• One in six long-term care residents in Ontario was physically restrained at least once in the previous three-month period.

That figure is more than double the rates found in other countries, such as the U.S. and Switzerland, and it’s an area in need of “major improvement,” according to the provincial government’s 2011 Ontario Health Quality Report.

The Spectator’s analysis also raises questions about the appropriateness of the drugs being prescribed to seniors in Ontario’s long-term care residences:

• About one in five long-term care residents in 2009-10 was being prescribed drugs that should be avoided in the elderly;

• About one in four newly admitted long-term care residents in Ontario was being prescribed a class of sedatives known as benzodiazepines. In the Hamilton-area LHIN, the rate was 28 per cent, fifth-highest in the province;

• One in seven newly admitted long-term care residents was being prescribed antipsychotic drugs without a clear reason for using them. In the Hamilton-area LHIN, the rate was 17 per cent, the third-highest rate in Ontario.

The Ontario Health Quality Report again calls this an issue with “major room for improvement.”

• • •

Yes, it’s true that we have an aging population, and yes, it’s true that people are living longer.

But that’s only part of the challenge for those charged with caring for Ontario’s elderly population.

“There have been many advances in medicine, people live longer and they have more complex medical issues, so their care needs are much heavier,” said Chaplin.

“I have a lot of long-term staff and they recall new admissions coming here, parking their car in the parking lot and carrying their own luggage in,” she added.

“Now, practically all our new admissions come in by stretcher from hospital.”

Reducing the number of hospital beds that are being occupied by elderly patients who really need some other form of care has been a major priority for the Hamilton-area LHIN, according to Donna Cripps, the LHIN’s CEO.

In health care terminology, those are called “Alternate Level of Care” beds, and about one of every six acute-care beds in Ontario hospitals was taken up with ALC patients last fiscal year.

The Hamilton-area LHIN has had one of Ontario’s highest rates of beds occupied by ALC patients, but Cripps said the proportion has been cut in half from July 2009 to September of last year.

Part of the success is due to an aggressive strategy to get older patients back into their own homes when appropriate.

In the past, Cripps said, an elderly patient with two or more medical issues might end up in hospital for a few days of tests and even a short spell like that could make it difficult for them to get out of bed.

“You’d say, ‘Well, I don’t know how they can manage at home independently, I think we need to go to a nursing home,’” said Cripps. “And very quickly the decision would be made.

“We realize now that care wasn’t what we ought to be doing and we’ve changed that really dramatically.”

Now, the Hamilton-area LHIN attempts to place those patients in a so-called “assess/restore” bed in a long-term care facility, with the goal of providing short-term rehabilitation for three months or less.

Cripps said that for every 100 people transferred to an assess/restore bed, about 80 are ultimately able to return to their own homes.

“I think from a quality of care perspective, I want to stay at home as long as I can stay at home,” said Cripps. “I want to be as independent as I can be for as long as I can be.

“We’re spending a ton of energy and effort on that and I think our numbers are starting to show that.”

The focus is beginning to shift toward strategies that allow people to remain at home as long as possible, Chaplin said, and providing appropriate levels of home support so they don’t end up in hospitals in the first place.

“When I talk to groups or organizations, I’ll often open by asking ‘Hands up anybody who sees as one of their goals in life to get a spot in a long-term care facility,’” Chaplin said. “There’s just a resounding groan.

“That’s not a goal for people,” she said.

“They want to be well, they want to be independent.”

By Paul Forsyth, Niagara This Week Staff, March 22, 2012

Instead, Luciani schlepped it up to front doors and up apartment steps over a two-hour period to deliver nutritious, hot meals to some of Thorold’s most vulnerable people.

For the first time, the Meals on Wheels program covering St. Catharines and Thorold took part in the Mayors for Meals Day. The annual event, held across much of the United States, is designed to raise the profile of, and build awareness of, the critical role Meals on Wheels programs play for the countless seniors who depend on the service.

Nikki Szczechura, office manager with the local Meals on Wheels program, said the delivery of hot meals from Monday to Friday at lunch time helps people such as seniors, the frail and those with acute or chronic illnesses in several ways.

Many of those clients may be unable to cook for themselves, or simply may not be able to afford nutritious meals.

“It’s an aid to helping them stay in their own homes,” Szczechura said — key in a region with long waiting lists for long-term care beds.

The healthy nature of the meals also keeps this vulnerable population as healthy as possible, she said.

Frozen meals are often delivered to homes on Wednesdays, which clients can re-heat on evenings or on weekends.

But it isn’t just the food that’s important, said Szczechura. Regular visits by the small army of volunteer drivers also plays an important role in the quality of life of clients who may often be isolated and lonely, she said. About 230 people volunteer for the St. Catharines-Thorold Meals on Wheels.

“I think some (clients) get us more for the company than the food,” said Szczechura.

She said a third benefit to clients is security: on more than a few occasions, volunteers who didn’t get an answer at the door discovered or helped to discover seniors in trouble, some of whom had fallen and were unable to move. Volunteers can also often detect if someone is showing signs of confusion or dementia: the volunteers can then contact the Meals on Wheels office, which in turn can get in touch with the client’s main contact person to alert them.

The first stop for Luciani and volunteer Doug White of St. Catharines was the home of 94-year-old Celia Beckett of St. Catharines.

She said she can’t stand to cook any more, so Meals on Wheels is key to her remaining independent.

“The meals are really helpful and enjoyable,” she said.

Elda Ryan, vice-chair of the local Meals on Wheels, said the service is “absolutely critical” to seniors.

“If it were to stop there would be 200 people without food tomorrow,” she said. “That’s how vital it is.”

The local Meals on Wheels, which has its meals made at Ina Grafton Gage Village and the Hotel Dieu Shaver Health and Rehabilitation Centre, delivers more than 52,000 meals each year in Thorold and St. Catharines, said Szczechura.

The local program gets some funding from the Local Health Integration Network that Niagara is part of, and also relies on donations to cover costs.

(From Niagara This Week by Amanda Moore and Scott Rosts, March 27, 2012)

It’s deja vu for west Niagara.

Community members are responding with shock and outrage at the news that the provincial government has pulled the plug on the $136.8 million project to completely replace West Lincoln Memorial Hospital.

“I find it hard to believe,” said Grimsby Mayor Bob Bentley, who was away on vacation when the province announced it had cancelled the rebuild. Without knowing all the details, Bentley said the town will need to communicate with the board to review next steps. “You don’t get that far down a process, to the RFP stage, and just cancel a project like that… They’ve tried this before but west Niagara is very committed to the hospital and we will have to fight for it again.”

Both Lincoln Mayor Bill Hodgson and West Lincoln Mayor Douglas Joyner are ready to stand with Bentley and fight for the local hospital.

“This is disgusting, an absolutely appalling day for west Niagara,” said Joyner, noting he plans to sit down the hospital board of directors in the coming days. “We have to fight for this hospital. I’m not sure what our next steps will be but I plan to get together with the other municipalities who are also not getting their hospitals built and work together with them.”

Hodgson said it is important to react appropriately in the fight for the project.

“This is a project that is designed to fill a long-standing need, this is a big area that is being served by that facility and it has a record of excellence and plays a huge role in community,” Hodgson said. “It is important that we react appropriately … that is key for our community and something we need to work diligently on together to make sure we have the best possible outcome.”

On Tuesday, the McGuinty government released its long-awaited spring budget, outlining how it intended to rein in its projected $16-billion deficit by 2017.

The government has outlined its plan to cancel major hospital projects and school grants, and delay highway upgrades as a way to cut borrowing by more than $3 billion over the next six years.

Part of the plan includes canceling four previously approved hospital upgrades, including the project for WLMH, which would have seen it replaced on its current site. The community portion of $13.6 million has already been raised and the province was to cover the remaining $123.2 million for the project, which had an intended shovel date of early 2013.

Vickie Baird, WLMH CEO, said in a statement that they are “profoundly disappointed” by the news and they are actively trying to find a reason for the move.

“Our staff, physicians, patients, donors and community at large deserve an explanation,” she said, adding the hospital is writing a letter to the Minister of Health and Long Term Care and will be requesting a meeting.

Baird said the hospital board will not give up because of the announcement.

“We will continue to advocate for and promote the merits of our project over the upcoming days and weeks,” she said.

She noted the staff and donors have earned West Lincoln Memorial Hospital a reputation for excellence in care.

“This project would have provided the modern and safe facility required to continue this tradition of caring,” she said. “And this is worth fighting for.”

Other projects on the chopping block include the replacement of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre’s hemodialysis unit, South Bruce Grey Health Centre’s emergency and ambulatory project in Kincardine and Wingham and District Hospital’s ambulatory and inpatient project.

In a statement, opposition leader and Niagara-West Glanbrook MPP Tim Hudak said the announcement is a disappointment to both the hard-working staff at the hospital and the residents and businesses that worked for a long time to raise money for the project.

“This is a sad day for residents in West Niagara,” Hudak said. “With this announcement today it is quite clear that Dalton McGuinty and the Liberals made promises they had no intention of ever keeping.”

In November of 2011, a major milestone on the local project was passed when Infrastructure Ontario issued a request for proposals for planning, design, and compliance consulting services.

The move sent a strong signal that the project, which was awaiting Ministry of Health and Long Term Care to sign approval for the functional program portion, was heading in the right direction.

WLMH board chair Vaughn Warrington said the board was at the table with Infrastructure Ontario just last month to review RFP applications.

“There was not a single inkling that there was an issue,” said Warrington. “Because we had done everything necessary in the process of getting a hospital built in this province.”

Warrington said they do not have a lot of details on the decision at this point and have requested a meeting with the Ministry of Health as soon as possible so they can get answers to staff, the physicians, patients, donors and the community at large.

“The cancellation of our project is very difficult news for us to hear. We certainly weren’t expecting it and we’re profoundly disappointed,” Warrington said. “We are actively working to understand the decision about why it was cancelled… Our community needs a modern and safe facility for care, it’s worth fighting for, and we will not give up because of this announcement.”

The fight is not a new one for West Lincoln Memorial.

In 1997, the then-Conservative government threatened to close the Grimsby-based hospital through a review by the Health Services Restructuring Commission. The community came out in droves to show its support with thousands showing up at a candlelight vigil at Grimsby Secondary School. The hospital was spared closure thanks to a partnership with Hamilton Health Sciences.

The community was back at in 2009, when the Local Health Integration Network informed the board that it would not begin its review of the project until its clinical services plan is complete, in early 2010. The board called on the community to push for the hospital and they responded by packing an open house at Winona Estates Winery.

“The community of west Niagara is not going to take this lying down,” said Norm Beal, who co-chaired the new WLMH capital campaign with Debbie Zimmerman. “There is nothing more important in our community – Grimsby, Lincoln and West Lincoln – than West Lincoln Memorial Hospital.”

Zimmerman, Grimsby’s representative on Regional Council, couldn’t agree more.

Zimmerman said she was absolutely stunned by the province’s announcement, especially given the fact the hospital has been shovel-ready for the last three years and that west Niagara continues to be the fastest growing area in Niagara, posting the highest growth in 2011.

“More importantly, this community stepped up and raised money,” said Zimmerman, noting the community has more than once stepped up and said they want a new hospital. “We’ve gone through this roller coaster for seven years, starting with the Conservatives wanting to close it. This community stood behind it and had it maintained as a 24-hour hospital… Everybody who came together to help build the momentum needs to come back at this again.”

Support was clearly shown when the WLMH Foundation’s capital campaign was in full gear, added Beal. Financial contributions came from all areas of the community, from the municipalities, to local business, to service clubs, and donations from residents. That support and passion for the hospital continues today, he said, and the community will be devastated by this news. In total, $13.6 million was raised by the community, with $6 million of that coming from municipal contributions.

“I caution everybody to take a deep breath while we figure out what exactly needs to happen next,” he said. “This is going to take a while to sink in and we need to avoid overreacting. We need to focus on figuring out what we can do as a community to put this on the front burner.”

Warrington echoed those comments.

“We are taking a strategic breath at this stage to understand all the implications of this announcement,” Warrington said. “We ask that the community does the same and absorb what has transpired. We’re all disappointed but will continue to fight for the project.”

With the project cancelled, decisions will need to be made both at the board level and by each of three municipalities, on what to do with the funds already committed to the project. A capital campaign raised $13.5 million for the project while each of the three communities — Grimsby, Lincoln and West Lincoln — made a combined $6 million commitment. Grimsby and West Lincoln opted to fund their shares through reserves, while Lincoln put it on the tax bill for a 10-year period.

“It is way too early to talk about the contributions that have been made by the community for this budget has not been passed and the actual status of the project is still unknown at this stage,” Warrington said.