MOUNT FOREST – The Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) hosted several hearings throughout the province from June 8 to 18, collecting feedback from community members impacted by hospital and emergency department closures.
The feedback collected will be used to develop recommendations for the future of local hospitals, including small, rural, and northern community hospitals.
The Mount Forest hearing focused on hospitals in Mount Forest, Durham, Palmerston and Listowel. Community members who spoke came from Mount Forest and Durham.
Louse Marshall Hospital Foundation board of directors president Scott Hartle talked about how community donations support rural hospitals through hospital foundations.
Hartle explained money donated to hospital foundations is used to cover capital costs for hospitals.
“Five years ago, the foundation ran a budget of about a quarter of a million dollars; our budget currently has over a million dollars,” he said.
Hartle credits a large chunk of that increase to inflation, but added that more frequently the foundation is now being asked to cover bricks-and-mortar repairs, which in the past have been the province’s responsibility, as well as doctor recruitment.
As the demands on the hospital foundations grow, their support in some ways is shrinking.
“In this area, not unlike other areas across the province, we have a strong, large Mennonite community and a concern of that community is where they are going to have their children,” he said.
“They’re simply just not offering that service here in Mount Forest, and that’s a concern amongst them and they support our hospital financially, but that support is waning because of that.”
He said another struggle of nurses is the lack of long-term care beds.
“These people are pushed back into our hospitals,” Hartle said. “They can’t go home … and that becomes a challenge and that eats up nursing resources.
“The nurses that we have in our hospitals, they don’t have the time to give the care that a person who is in a nursing home needs … That’s just not what they’re trained to do. That’s not what they’re there for.
“But because these people have no place to go, they’re forced to do that, and it adds anxiety and extra hours and really reduces the nursing abilities.”
He believes these challenges are faced in many hospitals across the province and he fears what could happen to the Mount Forest hospital.
“I’m not so naive to look up to my north and say, ‘Poor Durham, that won’t happen to us,’” he said.
“It’s just a function of time. Durham maybe is the first but probably won’t be the last so we need to get the message across that rural health care is important.”
Privatization
West Grey Mayor Kevin Eccles spoke about the recent reduction in emergency department hours and transition of hospital beds from the Durham hospital.
“Three months ago, our hospital came under attack, I can’t use any other word for it,” he said.
In February it was announced that, moving forward, Durham’s emergency department would be open seven days a week from 7am to 5pm.
Forty-five days later Eccles said he was blindsided when it was announced 10 inpatient beds were going to be transitioned to two other hospital sites – Walkerton and Kincardine – within the South Bruce Grey area.
Both changes were attributed to staff shortages.
“I will argue with you up and down that no we don’t have a staffing issue,” Eccles said. “Maybe succession planning is still a bit of a problem, but it’s not a staffing issue. It’s a management issue, especially in the Durham hospital.”
Eccles claimed Durham hospital staff took it upon themselves to put forward a schedule to try and keep the hospital open, but it was rejected by management.
“Management then said ‘no, there wasn’t enough redundancy in that schedule to be able to accept it.’ I can say where the redundancy is – at the board of management … That’s where the redundancy is,” he said.
Eccles called Durham the poster child for what is happening across the province.
“It is certainly an attack on . . . rural health care,” he said.
He added it’s about more than staffing problems or saving money.
“What the ultimate end game here is privatization of our health care,” he said. “I am not going to sit here and watch this happen. I won’t go quietly. We are going to do everything that we can.”
Eccles added, “The small hospitals are all under attack, a lot of them just don’t know it and it is going to happen if we are complacent and stand back.”
Natalie Mehra, executive director of the OHC, encourages the public to send in written submissions to assist with the development of their recommendations to Ontario ahead of the provincial election.
“What we’re asking people is to tell us your stories,” she said. “What is your access to health care, like? What services have you lost? What services are you having problems accessing?
“And then also what if any services have improved? And are there any best practices that you see that should be spread out across the province or could help to inspire improvements in other areas?”
Written submissions can be sent to info@ontariohc.ca.