Dear Niagara Health Foundation
September 12, 2023
Dear Niagara Health Foundation:
Thank you for the letter you sent the other day. Even though, as you so kindly noted, the government covers the operating costs of your hospitals, you need additional funding to purchase new equipment. There’s no end to the demand for health care, especially these days, and thanks to inflation, costs are only going up. That’s why you need to make urgent funding appeals to the community. I get that.
Though you didn’t mention them in the letter, Niagara Health has so may more needs than just new equipment. There are those fancy big-screen monitors in the emergency room. What would those poor sick people do while they wait for nearly a half a day to be seen by a doctor if they didn’t have those flowery messages from Niagara Health telling them about how every patient receives extraordinary care every time constantly flashing in their faces on anything less than the finest 4K-quality monitors? They really are fantastic, by the way. The picture is crystal clear. I only wish I could afford one of them myself. But alas. Maybe one day. If they go on sale. Maybe I could pick one up second-hand instead. I’ll have to check Kijiji.
Naturally, there’s the executive compensation. There isn’t a group in society more deserving of a fair wage than the hard-working directors and managers who make Niagara Health run like a well-oiled machine. You don’t need to be ashamed of it. Those naysayers who bellyache about Niagara Health being a shitshow behind the scenes just don’t know what they’re talking about. Your CEO’s pool needs a new heater. Your CFO needs to spend another week in the Bahamas. Six weeks just isn’t enough. Especially with our harsh winters. Everyone needs to recharge their batteries. And those things cost money. As much as those taxpayer watchdog groups would disagree, you can’t get more for less. Care, not cuts, is the only cure for what ails the healthcare system.
You also touched on the healthcare workers. They need tools to provide the excellent patient care we’ve come to expect from Niagara Health. They also need training. Diversity and inclusion seminars. Aboriginal cultural awareness sessions. Racial trauma workshops. The list goes on. This training is vital to ensure no one is left behind when they come through the doors. It’s not just the workers on the front line who need this training either. It’s critical that every staff member get it in a timely fashion along with refresher courses at regular intervals. Even the orderlies who mop the floors. Every piece of fecal matter they find on the ground needs to be looked at through an intersectional gender lens.
Those healthcare workers are under increasing strain as well. Their jobs are tough enough without the increased workload they now face as a result of Niagara Health firing so many of their former colleagues for not taking the death shot. No amount of money can adequately compensate them for the work they do, though they’ve certainly earned healthy raises. They also need better mental health support. More time off. And more importantly, better life insurance and access to free legal advice for when they draw up their wills. Because anyone who took those shots, as Niagara Health demanded of them, could literally drop dead at any moment. Many of their bed-ridden patients who showed courage in the face of their authoritarian government and resisted the bioweapon are in better shape health-wise than they are. Though I understand why you didn’t touch on these unpleasant and harsh realities in the letter, organizations like Niagara Health must face these issues head-on when preparing budgets. Everything has a cost associated with it.
Rest assured, I understand as well as anyone how acute the need is for more funding. As you say, we need to invest in local healthcare. And the time is now.
Your CEO’s pool depends on it.
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