As of Thursday June 1st, the emergency department at the hospital in Minden, Ontario is set to close forcing those in need of emergency care to travel to the hospital in Haliburton, some 25 kilometres away.

The situation has been an ongoing hot topic on Zoomer Radio’s Fight Back with Libby Znaimer.

Recently, petition organizer Richard Bradley talked about worst case scenarios once the Minden ER closes.

“Somebody is going to die because they couldn’t get to an emergency ward,” Bradley explained, “Assuming there is an emergency department in Haliburton, it’s up to the EMS depending on what their options are at that time as to where they would take them, but I guess the standard answer is they’ll just go to Haliburton, which on a good day is about another half hour away.”

On Tuesday, business owners from the community northeast of Toronto traveled to Queen’s Park to plead for the Ford PCs to reverse the situation.

But Health Minister Sylvia Jones insists the Minden ER closure has nothing to do with the government.

The local business people say the closure is the result of funding cuts and will have dire consequences.

In addition they say the ER closure won’t just hurt residents, it will hurt the local economy, driving away seasonal residents in summer and prompting people to think about moving away from the area.

They also cautioned The Ford Tories that the provincial Progressive Conservative Party could lose political support in the area .

And Minden isn’t the only community dealing the health care funding cuts.

The North Shore Health Network, which covers an area east of Sault Ste. Marie, has closed the emergency department in the local hospital.