3 minute read
Teamwork Makes The Dream Work
Door to WLMH’s future opened by volunteers, activism
The first organizational meeting of the Community Action Group at Mountainview Christian Reformed Church, chaired that night by Brian Hutchings, flanked by (L to R) Dr. Denise Marshall, John Armstrong and Cindy Toth, was another step on the long road of the community advocating for its hospital. Williscraft - Photo
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By Cindy Toth Tony Joosse & Dr. Tom Estall
Our community’s latest journey to save and rebuild WLMH started at Trinity United Church on Oct. 24, 2018.
About 2,000 area residents filled every inch of the church with many others attending but forced to wait outside, unable to get in due to capacity issues.
It was clear that the situation was urgent. Many were quick to recognize the threat as the message amplified across local media. This call to action brought back memories of the 1997 candlelight vigil for our hospital - standing on Grimsby Secondary School’s sports field - with thousands of people.
We also remembered the failure to get to a promised rebuild – thoughts were ‘here we go again’.
Personally, it was not easy to make the decision to go to this rally to hear about yet another challenge to WLMH’s future following the loss of a family member a few days prior. But from previous experience as a community activist, the power of community comes down to the determination of individuals working together for collective impact. Many in our community understand this.
Residents of West Niagara had been down this road before. The meeting at Trinity brought out together people who had not seen each other in ages. It was as if time had not passed since we met over past challenges to our hospital.
WLMH is special. Hamilton Health Sciences’ Healthy Futures, a health-hub-based vision, was developed with incredible community input. This vision was what our community understood would be the future for the hospital even into 2018. We had to ask ourselves – what changed? There was disbelief and skepticism that the community could change the proposed and dire future newly put on the table for WLMH.
That night there were no clear options on how to organize our community’s actions but actions are what we knew we needed and these were soon to come.
Within days, our group began to coalesce and started connecting with supporters and critical resources. The pace of action was intense and within a week we became the
volunteer-based Community Action Group (CAG). Many brought their hard-won experience back to the table – worn down, but not out. Our next big community meeting at Mountainview Christian Reformed Church on Oct. 30, launched the CAG. The critical ‘first responders’ were immediately joined CINDY Dr. TOM by more volunteers willing to commit TOTH ESTALL their time, expertise and passion. Again, people turned out by the hundreds. It was important to have a virtual connection along with face- to-face opportunities, so some key volunteers made sure the meeting was streamed via Facebook Live. Our social media and webpage have been key tools for engagement supported by a core communications team – still on duty. The community gave generously to get actions underway. With Armstrong Strategies on board to support engagement, the growing CAG team could draw on their expertise. There was an enormous amount of activity needed to build a strategic approach. The CAG was not going to set something up for the short term. We knew the community and team needed to deal with immediate needs. However, based on the long history of WLMH rebuild disappointment it would be critically important for the team to
