(Smiths Falls) – News that local Tory MPPs want
to revisit a five-year-old union proposal gave local OPSEU
members a pleasant surprise today.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union
included in its 2003 Centres of Excellence proposal the idea
that the soon-to-be-closed Rideau Regional Centre in Smiths
Falls be used as a transitional ALC (Alternative Level of Care)
facility for eastern Ontario.
OPSEU had made this proposal to both the
previous Conservative and current Liberal governments.
The idea was brought forward again by local MPPs
Bob Runciman and Randy Hillier today. “We wonder where they were
five years ago when we first proposed this,” says OPSEU’s
regional vice-president David Lundy.
“If they are serious, we will work with them to
implement this.”
An ALC bed in a hospital is used for a patient
that needs round-the-clock care but need not be in an acute-care
hospital. More than 400 hospital acute care beds are reported to
be in use by ALC patients in the Champlain and South East LHIN.
Meanwhile, the scheduled closing of Rideau Regional Centre will
cost the region more than 600 good jobs, more than 450 of which
are currently full-time.
Lundy says members of OPSEU Local 436 and
residents of the Smiths Falls area would welcome with open arms
the opportunity to maintain good jobs and services in the
region. “This would relieve beds in the hospitals, and allow
jobs and services to be saved in the community,” Lundy said.
“This is the kind of progressive solution our union will
continue to advance.”
