Stop closure of Brockville Mental Health Centre, OPSEU tells legislative hearing in Ottawa

OTTAWA - The president of Ontario Public Service Employees Union told an all-party committee in Ottawa today that it makes no economic sense to shut down the Brockville Mental Health Centre, killing as many as 250 jobs, in a community that already fails to meet the increasing needs of those who suffer from mental health problems.

“At a time when we’re supposed to be experiencing infrastructure building, the government is dismantling a vital part of the local infrastructure,” OPSEU president Warren (Smokey) Thomas told the provincial legislative all-party committee studying mental health and addiction issues.

“We do not accept that by closing down the Brockville Mental Health Centre we are improving local mental health treatment. We do not accept destroying 250 jobs,” Thomas told committee members in a prepared statement.

“And we certainly do not accept that the lives of workers and the treatment of patients should be tossed overboard by an unelected body (the Local Health Integrated Network) who needn’t justify their decisions in the court of public accountability.”

Thomas was joined at the hearing by OPSEU Local 439 president David MacDougall who represents close to 250 full-time, casual and part-time workers at the BMHC, which is scheduled to close its doors permanently in March 2011. OPSEU has mounted an aggressive campaign to stop the closure and to protect any transfer of jobs to Ottawa through the Human Resource Labour Adjustment Plan.

He said it made no sense to kill 250 skilled and well-paying jobs in Brockville during an economic recession, in a community which is already suffering from job layoffs in the private sector.

OPSEU and the City of Brockville have each adopted the position that there must be a one-year moratorium on the closing the BMHC until a task force studying rural and northern health care services submits its findings and recommendations to the Minister of Health and Long Term Care.

Thomas also pointed out that it will cost more – $26 million – to eliminate 250 jobs, than to spend $20 million to upgrade the current facility at BMHC to meet the needs of some of the most vulnerable residents of Brockville and area.

And he again criticized George Weber, CEO of the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group, for his refusal to implement a human resource labour adjustment plan to accommodate any job transfers to his facility in the event the Brockville centre is closed down.