Open letter to David Caplan, minister of health and long-term care

The creation of the Local Health Integration Network as an appointed provincial agency to oversee management of hospitals does not release your government from its obligation to provide comprehensive accessible health care in an equitable fashion to all Ontarians, for which only your government remains accountable to the electorate.

The Douglas Memorial Hospital from the time of its founding continually operated without deficits and did not surrender its independence to the Niagara Health System willingly.

We deserve and will accept nothing less than what the previous Conservative government provided to us.

We expect and demand that you take whatever legislative steps are necessary to ensure in law the continuation of our hospital as a small rural hospital as previously defined with the capacity to provide 24-hour emergency care, acute care beds and day surgery procedures on site.