i = July 26, 2024 Stratford Times Hospital workers rally outside Rae’s office in Treena Hollingworth, a PSW at Stratford General Hospital, goes to take the microphone from Sharon Richer, (OCHU) during s demonstration on July 8. CONNOR LUC; Local Journalism Initiative Reporter Treena Hollingworth, a PSW at Strat- ford General Hospital, was one of the many demonstrators who rallied outside ade Matthew Rae’s Stratford office July Sela nena told the crowd of Can: dian Union of Public Employee (CUPE) workers that with only half a per-cent in- crease to public hospitals in the provin- cial budget last year and a 200 per-cent increase for private clinics, a two-tier health-care system is slowly being en- trenched in the province — and that is a dangerous precedent. “Ontarians are proud of what we built,” Hollingworth said over a microphone to the crowd. “Our public hospitals are a vi- tal part of our community. Unfortunately, secretary-treasurer of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions due to this Baan our public hospi- tals are under thre: Hollingworth a other local hospital workers were specifically protesting the privatization of MRIs and CT scans, as announced earlier in June by the province as a way to cut wait times. By adding 100,000 more of these pro- cedures at community surgical and diag- nostic centres, the province hopes this is the first step to reduce wait times to 28 S. Michael Hurley, president of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) for the last 35 years, said that logic is not sound. “What's driving waiting lists in the hos- pital system is staff shortage,” he said. “What's needed to address that, really, is an aggressive program of incentivizing the people who are still working. “What we know about the impact of this kind of approach from places like France and Australia and Britain is that, ironically, Ben lists don't shorten. They get bi Hurley eeoined the private clinics end up competing with the public system for staff, which only exacerbates staffing problems. Privatization is twice as ex- pensive and comes with longer waiting lists, he claimed. Furthermore, Hurley asserted places like Stratford will be negatively impacted by this action in particular. “These surgical centres that they're go- ing to establish; they'll be in a city like London. They're not going to be even in Stratford — and they're sure not going to be in Clinton.” It is precisely because of this acute threat that Hurley said they chose Rae’s protest of “two-tiered health care” (CONNOR LUCZKA PHOTOS) Sharon Richer addresses the demonstrators. The back of her shirt, which reads “We op- Pose the privatization of hospital services,” sums up the group’s message. office to demonstrate at; although, he said that CUPE/OCHU has more protests planned this summer across the province. In an emailed statement, Rae said his government is continuing to make invest- ments in health care, including $550 mil- lion to support small and rural hospitals and $540 million to expand primary care ams. “Operations performed in community care centres will continue to be covered by OHIP and assist in alleviating pres- sures on our hospitals,” Rae said. “Simi- lar programs already exist in Ontario and other provinces such as British Columbia and Quebec with great success. “Patients shouldn’t have to wait for rou- tine appointments like these. I will con- tinue to support actions that reduce wait times and strengthens our publicly fund- ed health-care system.” Stratford sees huge amount of rain over short period, city warns about hazardous conditions CONNOR LUCZKA that 42 milli of rain was recorded Times Correspondent A huge amount of rain fell over Strat- ford in a short period of time, prompting warnings from local agencies around the hazardous conditions created by the storm. On July 16, Environment Canada is- sued a heavy rainfall warning for the region, with amounts between 50 to 80 millimetres expected to pour down over Stratford and area. While in Stratford that amount did not come down all at once, day after day of heavy rain resulted in some flooding across the city. Jeremy Witzel, manager of public works and infrastructure services, said in the morning of July 16, from 3:30 p.m. until 7:30 a.m. — that was on top of the 48 millimetres of rain on July 15 that severe- ly saturated the ground. “Our environmental services team and infrastructure on-call supervisor were out patrolling and reporting to alarms/ concerns just after the initial rainfall had occurred,” Witzel said in an email. “They responded to several locations that were called into the emergency on-call service. We experienced a high rainfall level in a short period (and) we believe our system handled it well.” Witzel said that Norfolk Street, from Romeo Street South to Borden Street, was closed for a period due to water over the roadway. Most of the on-street flooding was due to plugged catch-basin grates. Once found and cleared, the water was able to escape in the storm sewers. Public works teams followed the storm sweeping debris and clearing out road shoulders, Witzel said. Witzel also said the investment the City of Stratford has recently put towards stormwater infrastructure is noticeable. In 2021, city council approved a $19.3-million storm sewer diversion line on Queen Street, aimed to help mitigate flooding in the downtown core after sim- ilar storms to the one that just passed over e city. After the recent downpour, the Strat- ford Fire Department urged residents and visitors to be cautious around local water- courses in the days following. Elevated water levels and fast-flowing currents had created hazardous condi- tions in and around the Avon River and its tributaries. We have received several reports from concerned citizens about young peo- ple playing near the water of a tributary at the east end of the city, as well as at the T.J. Dolan Natural Area,” a media release from the fire department stated. “Such activities are perilous and should be stopped immediately to prevent tragic accidents.” The fire department recommends if anyone is near any bodies of water during periods of elevated water-levels and fast currents, to exercise extreme caution and to ensure that young children, teenagers and pets are kept away from riverbanks.