Facing cuts to their local hospitals, about 4,000 community members and their municipal leaders demonstrated and presented petitions at Queen’s Park April 30.

Organized jointly with the Ontario Health Coalition, it took almost an hour to unload the buses that lined University Avenue.

Angry at the lack of response by Health Minister David Caplan, municipal leaders blasted the McGuinty government for putting the health of their communities at risk.

“As a former Liberal candidate, I’m fed up, disgusted, sick and tired,” said Jeff Wesley, former mayor of Wallaceburg. “If our ER closes, we’ll work to defeat the MPP in our riding.”

Wesley complained that the premier had been a guest in his home and had promised that the future of the local hospital was safe on his watch. Today the Sydenham Hospital is now under threat of losing its ER despite 23,000 visits per year.

Cathy Still, reeve of the northern community of Burk’s Falls, said she has unsuccessfully tried for six months to get an appointment with the health minister to discuss the future of that community’s hospital, part of Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare.

With a $2.4 million deficit, she fears Burk’s Falls will be subject to closure, leaving residents no access to emergency care.

“In our community there is no public transportation. No taxi. It takes one hour to travel to North Bay, forty minutes to go south to Huntsville,” she said. “We have to stick together and do something about this.”

Mayors at the rally emerged from Queen’s Park to speak about their demands at a press conference earlier that day.

Doug Martin, mayor of Fort Erie, said small town municipalities wanted an access guarantee, including 24/7 access to timely emergency care. The mayors also asked for greater accountability and transparency, complaining the Local Health Integration Networks provided little of either.

“The government has to realize that the needs of a 72-year-old in Petrolia are different from those of a 20-year-old in Toronto,” said Martin, calling for more fair and flexible funding.

Martin presented Liberal MPP Kim Craitor with a 14,000-signature petition. Earlier the MPP had received another 10,000 signature from Niagara Falls.

On Monday Health Minister David Caplan announced a new panel to look a the future of  small, rural and northern hospitals. Many speakers called on the health minister to suspend the changes to these hospitals, including service cuts, until that panel had time to do its work.

NDP leader Andrea Horwath reported that she and her caucus had raised the concerns of the demonstrators in the legislature only to get a “callous and dismissive” response from the health minister.

Tory health critic Elizabeth Wittmer said the McGuinty government lacked a public plan, but the LHINs were in fact implementing their own “secret” health plan.

Natalie Mehra, director of the Ontario Health Coalition, said Ontario’s hospitals were already the most cost effective in the country.

“We have been restructuring for 15 years,” she said. “Enough is enough.”