Bed closures won't affect seniors' care, MPP says

Sudbury's MPP said there is no reason to be concerned about the closure of 30 beds at the former Memorial Hospital site —which are slated to happen at the end of March.

Rick Bartolucci was responding to a rally held outside of his office Monday by members of CUPE Local 1623, which represents most registered nurses and personal support workers in Sudbury.

Bartolucci said he's been assured by health care officials, including the North East Local Health Integration Network and the Alternate Level of Care steering committee, that health care in Sudbury is moving in the right direction.

"I support them in their cause to ensure that our seniors are treated at home as much as possible with the services necessary," Bartolucci said. "I've been assured that those services will be in place."

Caregivers worried

The coming cuts worry Anne-Marie MacInnis, whose father has been at the former Memorial Hospital site in Sudbury since the fall of 2011. Before that, he was receiving care at home.

"I was very concerned," MacInnis said. "I was surprised. And most of all, I was angry and scared."

MacInnis said she speaks regularly with front line workers about health care, but she noted she would like to have more communication from those making the decisions that will ultimately impact her father.

"These people in these bureaucratic levels have to start talking to the people who it directly affects," she said.

But Bartolucci said, by the time those 30 beds are closed, he looks forward to "as good as, or enhanced services for those people."

But those words provide little comfort for MacInnis — or for the people whose jobs will be affected by the bed closures.

A total of 62 layoff notices were handed out following word of the bed closures.