"None of the psychiatrists here are in agreement with this because it affects the patients and their families a great deal," said Dr. Raghunath Kumaran.

The plan called for the centralization of mental health services to the St. Catharines hospital, with only outpatient services remaining in Welland. Kumaran said the strategy is very troubling to admitted patients who benefit greatly from family and friend visitation.

"Slowly, in about a week's time, they integrate themselves back into the community," said Kumaran.

Families will now have to travel to St. Catharines, despite lack of consistent inter-municipal regional transit, said Kumaran. As well as being bad for the patients, he also said that the new plan will make it difficult for him to keep his Welland office.

Visiting admitted patients in St. Catharines as well as seeing patients at his office and at the Welland hospital, as well as being on-call for emergencies, will be a difficult juggling act, he said.

The doctor also questioned the NHS's method of unveiling the plan, calling it "sneaky." He said no local psychiatrists were notified of the plan until the day of the unveiling, July 17.

"We didn't know anything about the plan until administration called Thursday morning and said a teleconference was going to be held at 9 a.m.," said Kumaran.

The teleconference was then pushed back to 5 p.m.

"It's kind of a back-door way of doing things," said Kumaran.

Dr. Thoppil Abraham, another Welland psychiatrist, was also critical of the plan's recommendations when speaking with Niagara this Week.

"How are people from Wainfleet, Port Colborne, the homeless people in Welland, how are they going to get to St. Catharines?" said Abraham.

He said solutions to the NHS's budget woes should focus on more community programming. He also said administrative costs in health care are booming.

Patients being unnecessarily admitted to hospital in mental health wards because of a shortage of doctors is another problem, he said.