SSMH SAYS ‘FIGHT STILL ON’ IN RESPONSE TO MAHC’S LATEST NEW HOSPITALS GIVE AND TAKE
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
MUSKOKA — SSMH proponents need “convincing” the latest changes to MAHC’s redevelopment plan “have improved their offerings that will in fact result in two-fully functioning hospitals with shared services.
And they say: “Our petition should be tabled this week in the Legislature and we have another petition out with the same list of merchants who held the last ones. This new one is asking the District of Muskoka to hold any funding until our doctors have been heard regarding the Healthcare Close to Home Model that will see both Huntsville and South Muskoka with fully functioning hospitals.”
The give and take going on between the two hospital sites in Huntsville and Bracebrige pits services at MAHC’s two halves, which would carve up more than 150 beds a decade from now.
Save South Muskoka Hospital responded to Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare’s changes which said “in a positive fashion they have consulted with their consultants.
“Now they need to see if they can convince us that they have improved their offerings that will in fact result in two fully functioning hospitals with shared services,” writes member Dan Waters.
“They use words like ‘Expansion of Acute Care Beds’ to 36 at SMMH, but we currently have close to 70 beds; so that little twist on terms needs further explanation.
“They say they will allow one bed for a pregnant mother to have her baby in Bracebridge and they will use ‘novel areas at SMMH for clinical evaluative purposes.’ But they do not spell out what that means,” says Waters.
He goes on to say Huntsville will have a “rehab, activation and stroke” capacity, which means they will have extra funding extended to them for those services.
But he says “they don’t state what services will be at SMMH that follow the HBAM funding support from the province.”
Waters goes on to say that MAHC says it is “heartened by the outcomes of our collaborative discussions.”
“But (they) admit they have not spoken to our physicians and haven’t engaged with broader internal healthcare teams, the organization’s partners and the broader community.”
He says “Unfortunately, when they held ‘discussions with teams’ last summer and fall, what they said would be the model and what the announcement turned out to be in December and January landed us in this predicament where we don’t feel MAHC can be trusted.
“That culture of mistrust will be difficult if not impossible to change.”
The group critical of official plans to recreate healthcare in Muskoka and at its two hospitals says in latest release Wednesday: “What we know is that healthcare is changing in its delivery; that can’t be denied. But we also know that Muskoka needs two hospitals with some shared services and many duplicated services due to the demography of the area.
“As those of us who live here all year-round understand, we have extreme fluctuations in weather and human dynamics. Our population is both seasonal and permanent; rich and poor; old and young; with formal education and without formal education; book smart and bush smart; healthy and unhealthy.
“People who live here all year need to be creative and generous with their time. Our challenge is to make sure every one of those extremes is considered as we move to build hospitals that care for and respect our community with all of our blemishes and beauty.
“We are in this together with our healthcare providers. We need to go forward responsibly, respectfully and holistically.”
Says Waters: “I don’t see that MAHC management has listened at all. They say they’ve spent two weeks aiming at critical concerns by ‘stakeholders’ to ensure their plan aligns more closely with community needs.
“When members of our communities built our two hospitals, they built them believing more children would be born in those communities and believing that if someone was in need of hospital care, they would be as close to them as possible.
“This latest attempt to spin some light on the monuments they want to construct has been done without listening to the community. It reminds me of my time as an MPP when Toronto consultants thought they could build one sewer and water plant for all of Muskoka. Just think about that. It is evidence that they really don’t know this region. This fight is still on.”
To see this weeks’ MAHC update (click here)
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