Friends of the Ajax Pickering Hospital

5 Kirkham Drive, Ajax, Ontario L1S 5L1

February 4, 2010

The Honourable Dalton McGuinty M.P.P.

Premier of Ontario

Legislative Building, Room 281

Queen’s Park

Toronto, Ontario

M7A 1A1

Dear Premier McGuinty,

On January 14, 2010, Rik Ganderton, C.E.O. of the Rouge Valley Health System told the Health and Services Committee of the Region of Durham that the R.V.H.S. could be looking at 2.5 million dollars in service cuts if its provincial funding is frozen. Rik Ganderton further stated “We’ll be looking at twenty-five areas where these service cuts might occur.”

The Friends of the Ajax Pickering Hospital firmly believe that the Rouge Valley Health System cannot provide adequate and necessary hospital services for the people of its communities in Ajax, Pickering, Whitby and Scarborough if provincial hospital funding is frozen for the fiscal year 2010-2011.

The Friends of the Ajax Pickering Hospital urge your government as strongly as possible to provide an increase in provincial hospital funding of, at the very least, 2.5% so that at a minimum the current level of existing hospital services can be maintained and sustained. After a long involvement in hospital services issues, the Friends know that if present basic necessary hospital services are to be maintained, present hospital services cannot stand a freeze in hospital operating funding. A freeze is a cut. Cuts engender public health.

Moreover, the Friends believe that it is bad policy for your government, on the one hand, to provide capital funds for the expansion of hospital facilities and then deny the hospitals the operating funding needed to effectively and efficiently utilize those expanded hospital capital investments in the best interests of public health. For instance, the Government of Ontario has provided the capital funds for a much needed greatly expanded state of the art emergency department at the Ajax Pickering Hospital which opened in November 2009. Is your government now going to deny the operating funding for the twenty-nine plus additional medical beds and additional staff that the new expanded emergency department will need to serve the public and reduce wait times? Growth communities must have growth funding.

In conclusion, the Friends strongly urge that the government not freeze hospital operating funding, but rather increase the said operating funding at the very least by 2.5% for the 2010–2011 fiscal year.

Mr. Premier, thank you for your consideration of this urgent request.

Sincerely,

Yvonne Bosch Walter Donaldson

c.c. The Honourable Deb Matthews M.P.P., Minister of Health and Long Term Care

The Honourable Margaret Best M.P.P., Minister of Health Promotion

Joe Dickson M.P.P., Ajax Pickering

Wayne Arthurs M.P.P., Pickering Scarborough

Christine Elliott M.P.P., Whitby Oshawa

Janet Ecker, Chair, R.V.H.S.

Rik Ganderton, C.E.O. R.V.H.S.

Foster Loucks, Chair and Members of the Board, Central East LHIN

Chair Roger Anderson and Members Durham Regional Council

Mayor Steve Parish and Council, Town of Ajax

Mayor Dave Ryan and Council, City of Pickering

Mayor Pat Perkins and Council, Town of Whitby