The Ontario Health Coalition held a rally on Friday outside MPP Vic Fedeli’s office.

Natalie Mehra is the executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition.

She says the rally was held to call on Fedeli to take steps to keep the 29-bed addiction treatment program in place.

She admits the community has taken several positive steps recently on the issue including not laying off staff and having a 16 bed residential program.

“They’re opening additional withdrawal management beds that’s like detox with the associated services. That’s at the King Street site. They’re expanding the number of crisis beds which had been cut previously,” she says.

Still Mehra says more needs to be done not less and cutting the number of beds from the current 29 isn’t the answer.

“There needs to be more community support for withdrawal management and that hasn’t been put in place. And there needs to be more acute services for intensive hospital treatment,” Mehra says.

She calls on Fedeli to lead the way.

MPP Vic Fedeli has issued a statement:

“We’re pleased to know that the plan for community withdrawal management services is moving forward so we can ensure those who need mental health and addictions services in our community can access them, as was prioritized by the mayor’s roundtable.
We expect all our health care professionals to work together in the best interests of clients in need.
Our government is delivering real action by investing a historic $3.8 billion over the next 10 years to build a comprehensive, integrated and connected mental health and addictions system.
OHCU/CUPE’s continued fearmongering and politically-motivated rhetoric regarding funding is irresponsible. Our government will focus on facts. The fact is the health care budget is being increased $1.9 billion, including an additional $384 million for hospitals.
Here in Nipissing, our government has demonstrated its commitment to ending hallway health care by providing more than $4.5 million in added funding for the North Bay Regional Health Centre this past year, plus an additional $733,835 for capital upgrades, announced recently.
Our government made clear our commitment to an efficient, stable hospital system that ensures patients receive timely access to quality health care, and is looking forward to making necessary improvements to deliver on that commitment.”

(photo by station staff)

Filed under: beds, mpp-vic-fedeli, ontario-health-coalition