The fallout from Wednesday’s announcement that 158 jobs and some 30 beds will be cut from the North Bay Regional Health Centre has been sizeable and swift. Some are taking the chance to batter the liberal government for its failings, while the Canadian Union of Public Employees is planning protests today that it describes as “massive.”

“We need to protect these jobs and we need to rally all coalitions and area residents against these cuts,” claim Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition. “We are planning three days of massive action and one of the days will be in North Bay.

“We will be heard. We will have thousands of people who will be heard all the way down to Queen’s Park.

“Right now, North Bay is being battered with cuts and privatization. These cuts are the worst in all of Ontario. This city has lost 360,000 hours of patient care in the last few years.”

The protests come in the wake of the news of huge cuts from the North Bay hospital, which has been underfunded and now sits with a $14 million deficit for the year. Attempting make up that cost has meant many full-time staff have lost their jobs, while numerous beds have also been lost. While hospital president Paul Heinrich attempted to put a positive spin on the cuts, saying they would improve patient care, the general consensus is that the opposite is true.

However, while Heinrich is guilty of optimism in front of a bleaker truth for patient care, the blame is largely being placed at the door step of the liberal Ontario government.

It is not just the main Health Centre that will be impacted either as Heinrich confirmed that of the 30 beds being slashed, 16-18 will come from the hospital’s satellite location on Kirkwood Drive in Sudbury. Those beds are specialized rehabilitative mental health units.

“What we told staff today is that we will be working with partners from the Sudbury area to develop a high-support housing — there’ll be social workers and therapists, and even nurses,” he said. “We’re going to transition those 16 beds into a complex, to be developed in Sudbury… We’re establishing a better quality of life. Our vision for mental health care is to respect people, and to (nurture) choice and independence.”