Nickel Belt MPP Shelley Martel, the NDP?s health critic, will hold a news conference Monday to discuss her ideas for improving access to health care in the Sudbury area.
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Local community health centre representatives will join her at 10 am at Centre de Santé Communautaire in downtown Sudbury.
In a news release, Martel says cuts at the Sudbury Regional Hospital impact patients and will put health care out of reach for local patients who are poor or physically or developmentally challenged.
?Sudbury Regional Hospital must start challenging the McGuinty Liberals to keep their promise to better fund health care, instead of cancelling prescription drugs from the hospital pharmacy program or reducing operating room time for dental patients who are developmentally challenged or have complicated medical conditions.?
Cost-cutting measures as per the hospital?s recovery plan are now coming to light and clearly show that budget cuts do have an impact on patients and the services they need. These include the elderly, low-income and patients without a drug plan who used to access the hospital pharmacy for prescription medication and developmentally and physically challenged patients who require anesthesia and time in hospital, to have their dental work to be
done.
?I fear increased costs for prescriptions will only force patients to go without necessary medication, and that will
cost the health care system more in the long-run.
?And it?s really unfair to force vulnerable patients to travel to Toronto for dental surgery when local dentists can perform the work in Sudbury,? she said.
Martel said the hospital officials should actively lobby the McGuinty Liberals to keep their election promise to
?put your health care first.?
