Minden, Ont., residents hope legal challenge will stop local emergency room from closing

Haliburton Highlands Health Services announced in April that the ER at its Minden location would close as of June 1.

With less than two weeks to go before the planned closure of an emergency department in the central Ontario community of Minden, residents opposing the move are hoping to take their battle to court.

Haliburton Highlands Health Services announced in April that the ER at its Minden location would close as of June 1 and all emergency services would be transferred to its Haliburton site, about 25 kilometres away.

That has enraged some local residents, who have launched a campaign called “Save Minden ER.” On Friday, the group announced a plan to raise $100,000 in order to fund a legal challenge seeking an injunction and judicial review of the consolidation plan before it moves ahead.

“If we don’t get this injunction in place and that blue H comes down from the emergency department, we’ll never see another emergency department in the area,” said campaign spokesman Patrick Porzuczek, just prior to a Sunday afternoon rally organized by the group.

“The whole catchment of Minden will have no hospital in the area for any reason to deal with heart attacks, seizures, strokes, injury, sickness. They will have to be transported … out of the community to receive emergency services.”

Porzuczek said the group raised $50,000 — or half its ultimate goal — in the first two days of the campaign. That swift response, he said, demonstrates “the urgency that this community has to fight this closure.”

“Everybody is well aware with the way it’s set up that somebody is going to die,” he said.

“There’s been no public consultation. Access to community care for emergencies is basically removed. A one-way cab fare from Minden to Haliburton is $110. We also have one of the highest rates of poverty in the area where a lot of people that are here are on social allowances that can’t afford to take that taxi cab ride.”