I also want to welcome some good people from Durham, Dawn McNab and Kris Kennedy, who are the co-chairs of the Save the Durham Hospital committee, as well as everybody else who came to join us. Thank you for being here.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome people from Durham, including Kris Kennedy as well as Dawn McNab, who are the co-chairs of the Save the Durham Hospital Committee. Thank you for being at Queen’s Park and thank you for fighting to keep Durham hospital open.

MPP Wong-Tam moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 196, An Act respecting the use of correctional facilities and mental health crises / Projet de loi 196, Loi concernant l’utilisation des établissements correctionnels et le traitement des crises de santé mentale.

What happened, Speaker, is that the hospital in charge of the Durham hospital—it’s in charge of four different hospitals—has decided to, first, move all of the in-patient beds out of the hospital. The hospital in Durham used to have 24/7 emergency care; they’re now reduced to 10 hours a day, seven days a week of urgent care. We have seen this before.

The good people of Durham are here today. Many of them are part of a vulnerable population. They are at least 30 kilometres away from the nearest other rural hospital. This hospital has been there for over 100 years, and they want it to continue to be there. They want to have equitable access to our health care system.

We know that medicare consists of hospital services and physician services. Those services are offered to us for free. If the hospital in Durham is no longer there, it will mean longer transportation time to a hospital further away.

The people of Durham want to be able to speak to the Minister of Health, want to be able to speak to the Premier, so that they fully understand that they need to keep their hospital open.

I support this petition, Speaker, will affix my name to it and ask page Sophie to bring it to the Clerk.