Good morning, Greater Sudbury! Here are a few stories to start your day on this Thursday morning.
Vale donation keeps consumption site open for another month
The Spot, Sudbury’s supervised consumption site, will be able to run through the month of January after receiving $75,000 in funding from Vale Base Metals. “We are pleased to announce the generous commitment of Vale Base Metals, a steadfast partner in community well-being,” said a press release from Réseau ACCESS Network. “In a demonstration of corporate responsibility, Vale Base Metals has pledged $75,000 to sustain 'The Spot' through the month of January 2024. This substantial contribution ensures the continuation of vital harm reduction services and support services for individuals in need.” The supervised consumption site has been pushing for the provincial funding they applied for two years ago with greater urgency as it got closer to its existing funding’s end date, Dec. 31.
Ontario hospital services shuttered over 1,000 times this year: advocacy group
There have been more than 1,000 closures of hospital services in Ontario this year, totalling more than 31,000 hours of lost care, according to an advocacy group. The Ontario Health Coalition, which advocates for public health care, tracked the closures of emergency departments, urgent care centres and other facilities through news reports and public statements from the hospitals. They found 867 temporary emergency department closures and the permanent closure of the one in Minden, 316 urgent care centre closures, two outpatient laboratory closures, 11 obstetrics unit closures, one long-term labour and delivery unit closure and one partial ICU closure, mainly impacting small-town and rural Ontario.
Sudbury's much-anticipated opioid drug summit opens Thursday
Public Health Sudbury and Districts (PHSD) said Monday the much-touted Summit on Toxic Drugs, slated for this Thursday and Friday, will exclude the news media from the event. This follows an inquiry from Sudbury.com on Monday about the meeting venue along with a detailed inquiry about the summit agenda, the key speakers and details on the presentation topics. The PHSD communications office responded that the summit, which is organized by the health unit and the City of Greater Sudbury, is set up as an invitation-only event. Media will not be invited into the room. The health unit said media releases will be provided along with the availability of some speakers for interviews. "While this event is by invitation only — not an open or public meeting — and the venue has limited capacity, we do have plans to host media availability with some Summit participants, speakers, and organizers," said a reply from the communications office.
Vale, mine innovation groups call for better mining procedures
Vale, along with Sudbury's Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) and The Mining Innovation Commercialization Accelerator (MICA), are putting out a call to the larger mining community to find better and safer ways to carry out some basic mining procedures. The call is to seek new ways of marking bootleg drill holes and inserting tubes into lifter holes. Both are basic functions carried out close to a freshly-drilled rock face by miners every day, but both present hazards to the miner. In both cases, the call for new solutions seeks to find ways that miners can do the work without putting themselves at risk. In both cases, there is currently no commercialized solution for dealing with the problem. Bootlegs are the remnants of a previously blasted drillhole, left over on the rockface. Bootlegs, which are sometimes called misfired holes, present a danger because a hole that is three to six inches deep for example, can still contain leftover blasting powder. Bootleg holes must be inspected, cleaned out and marked (red paint) before drilling a new round at the face. It is against the law for miners to drill inside bootlegs.
Whitefish mourning the theft of 120-year-old church bell
Maria is missing. “Maria” is the name that was given in a blessing when a 400-pound church bell was cast just over 120 years ago. Ernie Heerschap, the chair of the volunteer parish council at St. Christopher Catholic Church in Whitefish, said the theft was only discovered this past weekend. "That bell has been in that place at St. Christopher's since the early 1960s. It was kind of a fixture there," he said. The discovery the bell was missing happened this past Sunday just before the 9 a.m. church service. "Usually, somebody goes out to ring the bell before Mass. And in this case, somebody had gone out and the bell was gone. So a little bit of investigating showed that the bell had been completely removed from its cradle," said Heerschap.
Sudbury honours national day against gender-based violence
For the last 34 years, Dec. 6 has been recognized as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. And though it began as a way to acknowledge the gender-based massacre at Ecolé Polytechnique in 1989 that left 14 women dead, it now serves as a reminder gender-based violence continues to plague society. This was a point raised at a vigil today, organized by the SWC and YWCA, at Tom Davies Square. In fact, the City of Greater Sudbury recently proclaimed gender and intimate partner-based violence an epidemic, joining 63 other municipalities in Ontario. In Sudbury, Carol Founier was found in a wooded area on Nov. 8, a victim of intimate-partner violence, police said.
