PHYSCIANS FIGHTING BACK — GOING MORE PUBLIC IN OPPOSITION TO HOSPITALS PLAN THAT THEY CALL ‘DEATH KNELL’
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
MUSKOKA — Some South Muskoka doctors have become more vocal after penning a letter of opposition to MAHC’s north-south hospitals divide.
Even at SMMH physicians and nurses within aren’t holding back in discussing the issue when asked about it while taking care of patients.
Others, too, aren’t hesitating to express their concerns in opposition not only online but now on other news media like radio.
Friday Dr. Shannon Lees, of Bracebridge, spoke to CBC Radio in a call-in show just after 7 a.m., which opened by saying south Muskoka residents are “up in arms” about a “devastating blow to the community” that’s pitting Muskoka’s two largest towns in a growingly bitter fight for services between South Muskoka Memorial Hospital in Bracebridge and Huntsville District Memorial Hospital.
Lees said the southern doctors’ “objections” were “numerous.”
“Mainly that this is really going to reduce accessibility to crucial inpatient medicine for the residents of south Muskoka — Bracebridge, Gravenhurst and surrounding communities like Port Carling, Utterson and Bala.
“This is really going to be a death knell for proper patient care in the area.”
Lees is a rural physician grad from McMaster University is back in her hometown. She took over 1,300 patients last June from Dr. Bill Hemens and Dr. Sandi Adamson at the Archdeacon Clinic where Dr. David Kent delivered her 37 years ago.
She said: “A lot of the main issues are around accessibility. So when you move inpatient beds out of the community that means the family has to travel to visit loved ones in hospital. When you move obstetrical care that means that pregnant people have to travel — not only to deliver their babies but for all their pre-natal care.
“And in a rural community that doesn’t have a robust transportation system that is affordable and accessible and that’s widely available, they depend on rides and the kindness of family members or strangers to get them to hospital for appointments.
“This is really problematic for this community.”
Lees disagrees with MAHC, which claims the hospitals aren’t working as is.
“I disagree with that statement. Things are working the way they are right now. A lot of the family physicians agree as well.
“I think the main issue is funding and the province is not going to give the project enough money for the two full-services at both hospitals. … So really funding is at the heart of this.”
According to Lees the opposition in south Muskoka has been “quite robust.
“People here are really upset that they’re going to be losing access to inpatient care and obstetric care. It doesn’t seem equitable that all these services are going to move to one site that’s quite some distance from where they live.”
According to Lees “the vast majority of family physicians (in south Muskoka) are quite opposed to this, because it really changes the way we practise medicine. It changes our ability to care for our patients in that broad scope way that rural physicians do.
“There are maybe a small handful of physicians in south Muskoka who do support this. By in large, speaking as a family physician, we’re all in opposition to this.”
Asked how the “tension and emotion” of already trying find a family doctor is playing out and “adding fuel to the fire,” and whether she is “weary” of the challenge, Lees said “personally I’m not.”
“I was born to be a family doctor. I really feel really passionate about it. I trained at the McMaster rural family medicine program. So I was trained to provide medicine to rural communities, which means broad scope birth, end of life, hospital, ER, obstetrics care. That’s always going to be my passion. I will always be advocating for the provision of that care for the community I live in, that deserves this kind of care so deeply.”
Asked how she thinks the board will react after Tuesday’s second last public meeting in Bracebridge, Lees hopes the board will “take that this is not an acceptable solution.
“That this is not an equitable solution that treats these communities fairly. That it is not sustainable.
“That it is going to lead to worse patient outcomes and that it is going to make it harder to recruit physicians to an area that doesn’t have a fully functional hospital with the ability of services that physicians expect.
“Which is going to be problematic in the future to recruit physicians for the people who live here already. And the large number of people who are already living here and retiring here.”
Addressing MAHC arguments about being more “efficient, effective and streamlined,” Lees would prefer to see services expanded.
“Absolutely they should. This is a growing community. It’s an aging population that needs hospitals with inpatient care. Growing communities need hospitals with obstetric care for their young families.
“This is not a solution that is far-sighted and future-oriented. It is one that is short-sighted designed to address a budgetary issue. Not one that is truly looking at the needs of the community now and in the future.”
How hopeful is she about “putting the brakes on this plan?”
“I’m optimistic. I am an optimist. I am hopeful that the community opposition as well as the strength of opposition within the physician community, plus the nursing community and the hospital staff can hopefully help the board to realize that this is not a solution that is going to serve the community.
“And that is in fact going to harm the community. I’m hopeful.”
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