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January 24, 2005
Box 780, 181 Perry St.
Port Perry, ON L9L 1A7
50 Centre St. S.
Oshawa, ON L1H 3Z7
of Uxbridge 51 Toronto St. S.
PO Box 190Uxbridge, ON L9P 1T1
1 The Esplanade
Pickering, ON L1V 6K7
605 Rossland Rd. E.
Whitby, ON L1N 6A3
575 Rossland Rd. E.
Whitby, ON L1N 2M8
65 Harwood Ave. S.
Ajax, ON L1S 2H9
RE: Huronia Regional Centre Closing and the Impact to your Community
You may or may not be aware of the Province’s plans to close the 3 remaining centres in Ontario that care for and
house our most severely mentally and developmentally disabled citizens of this province.
Huronia Regional Centre in Orillia is the closest centre to your municipality and my brother William (Billy) George
Luke has been a very well cared resident there for the past 42 years.
Billy suffered multiple and uncontrolled epileptic seizures before his first birthday that left him severely disabled.
The years and further health complications have left Billy 100% reliant on 24-hour doctor, nurse and social worker
care. Additionally, a multitude of specialized medical care is available to him at or within minutes to H.R.C. Billy
doesn’t talk, walk, move from his wheelchair, show any emotions and is totally oblivious to his surroundings. Three
years ago, Billy broke his hip falling from his bed without whimpering a sound.
If the Province has their way, Billy will be moved to a community care facility somewhere in Durham Region to be
integrated back into a community surrounding. This will be an absolute death sentence for my brother. To our
knowledge, there is not a single facility in Durham Region equipped or specialized in the care that Billy receives at
H.R.C.
You cannot get a general practitioner in Oshawa to care for your basic needs. Waiting lists for nursing homes and
community care are 5 years long. Community care facilities are not currently equipped to handle Billy’s basic
needs, let alone his specialized care, nor does it make any economic sense to retrofit them for so few. Are we to
believe that these minimum wage run, profit driven private facilities are to employ 24 hour specialized care? Left to
the Provincial Government, your community will be dumping grounds for our family members. I personally know of
at least five other families from H.R.C. located in Durham Region. Sadly your community could be the next
Oaklands - Randy Mogridge tragedy waiting to happen.
Firstly I desperately urge you to support our cause to keep H.R.C. open. Letters of support would be extremely
appreciated. Secondly, I would ask that you write your contacts in the Provincial Government requesting details of
their plans and the impact these closures will have on local municipalities. At present, the province has refused to
release their plans to the families of residents at H.R.C. and have proceeded to move residents from H.R.C.
Thank you for your support in advance and I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours truly,
D. W. Luke