Spring_Edition_CSA

Regional Issues

Ontario Intends to Close Facilities for the Disabled – Can you Help?

The Ontario Minister of Community and Social Services has announced plans to
close Huronia (Orillia), Rideau (Smiths Falls) and Southwestern (Chatham) Regional Centres, home to people
with developmental disabilities, many of whom have multiple diagnoses and severe medical problems that
cannot be met in the community.

The closing of these Centres will have a devastating impact on these long-term residents with
developmental disabilities, their families, the developmental services sector as well as the economies of the
local communities.

Ontario could use the professional staff and facilities, of these Centres, to further extend their specialized
services, their support, and their professional training for the disabled and could easily transform these
facilities into ‘Centers of Excellence’.

The families of the disabled residents, the Ontario Public Services Employees Union, and local residents of
the three areas are fighting to keep these Centres open. At the very minimum, we should expect the Ontario
Ministry to have a written plan for each individual disabled resident, before any such closures occur.

The massive upheaval of people’s lives and the resultant loss of more, highly experienced, health care
workers are not in the interests of the communities or of the people of Ontario. We, at CSANews, believe the
closures are “cost cutting without regard to the consequences”. We need to expand our health services to
be more proactive and responsive to the needs of our people, not close hospital beds, shut down facilities
and drive our health care workers away, when we need them most.

Where is the vision? Can we not turn these facilities into “state of the art” health care centers of which we
can all be proud? We have the staff, we have the equipment and we have the locations – now all we need is
the common sense. Can you help? Sure you can. Please…

Write directly to your own MPP with a copy to:

The Honourable Dalton McGuinty
The Premier of Ontario
Legislative Building
Queen's Park
Toronto, Ont.,
M7A 1 A 1
dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

and

The Honourable Sandra Pupatello
Minister of Community & Social Services
6th Floor, Hepburn Block
80 Grosvenor Street
Toronto, Ont.,
M7A 1 E9
spupatello.mpp@liberal.ola.org

Here is a link to a listing of the MPP’s
http://olaap.ontla.on.ca/mpp/daCurRdg.do?locale=en&ord=RDG_NAME

Would you also please send a copy to either
Lyz Sayer
108 Moore Avenue Toronto, Ont., M4T 1 V3
lsayerAsayer.ca
Pat Cooke R. R. #2 Bancroft, Ont., KOL 1 CO
patcooke@sympatico.ca
Or Email your Letter to
Sandra.macpherson@symaptico.ca