(June 28, 2024) By: Scott Dunn, Goderich Signal-Star<\/p>\n
The Ontario Health Coalition stopped in Chesley on June 18 and heard local people share their struggles and concerns about local healthcare.<\/p>\n
The coalition will issue a report in early September\u00a0reflecting what it hears during its numerous public consultations across Ontario this summer, and will present some recommendations, coalition executive director Natalie Mehra said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the same group which has been part of protests over reduced hospital services in Durham and Chesley and is calling for a moratorium on hospital closures and a stop to healthcare privatization.<\/p>\n
Chesley\u2019s consultation drew about 50 people to the community centre, where nine speakers shared their experiences.<\/p>\n
Rev. Craig Bartlett, an Arran-Elderslie United Church minister, described the difficulty he continues to have to find a doctor. He relies on the Chesley emergency department and two outpatient clinics at Owen Sound hospital. His referrals to those clinics took from months to almost 2 \u00bd years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been doing my best but it has been a struggle trying to get the healthcare provision that I need,\u201d he said. A couple of times Chesley\u2019s emergency room has been closed, he noted, as it was on June 18.<\/p>\n
Chesley\u2019s emergency department is only open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday, but has been subject to periodic closures due to staffing shortages.<\/p>\n
The hours are the same in nearby Durham, but its emergency department is open seven days a week. However, its in-patient beds have just been moved to other South Bruce Grey Health Centre hospitals, due to staffing and safety concerns, the hospital\u2019s CEO has said.<\/p>\n
An estimated 1,000-plus Arran-Elderslie residents don\u2019t have access to primary healthcare, Bartlett said, and some he has spoken to have been waiting six or seven years to find a doctor or nurse practitioner. A show of hands at the meeting revealed he was the only one without a family doctor, although some must travel out of the community.<\/p>\n
Bernice Kozak said she lives 1 \u00bd blocks from Chesley hospital, but when her partner suffered a heart attack, it took one hour for him to see a doctor. It\u2019s a \u201ccrisis\u201d in Chesley, she said.<\/p>\n
A neighbour\u2019s partner, who has significant health problems, left him to move to a larger city to live with her son, who can get her in to see his doctor, Kozak said. The remaining partner is listing their house and moving out of Chelsey.<\/p>\n
When she retired to Chesley, Kozak left her family doctor behind and when she asked at the Chesley Medical Clinic to be put on a list to get a new one, they laughed at her, she said. \u201cFortunately, I found a doctor in Kitchener.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among points she raised was the amalgamation of four hospitals \u2013 Chesley, Durham, Walkerton and Kincardine \u2013 isn\u2019t working for Chesley. \u201cIt leads to fiscal decisions in the name of efficiency . . . I\u2019ve seen it pit communities against each other. Why did one community get this and we didn\u2019t get that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Hazel Pratt raised concern about the four SBGHC hospitals being all under one board and CEO. \u201cI would say there\u2019s been no benefit to Chesley and the area\u2019s patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t feel there\u2019s any equity in the services offered and that the Kincardine hospital has benefitted from this amalgamation, as most of the board members are on the Kincardine hospital redevelopment committee.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arran-Elderslie Mayor Steve Hammell and municipal chief administrative officer Syliva Kirkwood said they\u2019ve been raising the issue of protecting rural healthcare at municipal conferences and in one-on-one opportunities.<\/p>\n
Hammell called concerns about the state of Chesley hospital \u201cthe largest, biggest, most talked about topic in my six years as mayor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kirkwood noted transportation to alternative hospital sites is lacking, particularly to the large local Amish and Mennonite community.<\/p>\n
Sporadic hours of the emergency department since at least 2019 has been a burden on the community, she said, and hospital uncertainty is harming opportunities for Chesley\u2019s development and growth, both said.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve been asking the province to create a local mayors\u2019 forum encompassing the communities within the SBGHC service area \u201cto regularly communicate and share information on rural healthcare in our area and to continue to put healthcare in the forefront of the province\u2019s mandate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such a forum would help provide information directly to the province, while helping municipal officials share information about what\u2019s happening with the public. Arran-Elderslie also wants SBGHC to enhance their communication with the public, Kirkwood said.<\/p>\n
The health coalition panel included local healthcare advocates Brenda Scott and Norah Beatty, who co-chair the Grey Bruce Health Coalition, NDP health critic France Gelinas, Dr. Adil Shamji, the Liberal health critic, who joined by Zoom, and Graham Webb, a lawyer and executive director of the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly.<\/p>\n
Mehra, the coalition executive director, was also on the panel and said in an interview the coalition\u2019s report will address how to stop communities having to fight \u201can existential battle for the future of their hospitals every few years.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she thinks the panel, which must be unanimous on its recommendations, will consider recommending a basket of services each hospital must provide, \u201cso it isn\u2019t up to the discretion of a local, unelected board to determine that they close a hospital . . .\u201d<\/p>\n
Hospital governance is another subject the report will tackle. Some communities have \u201cdeep distrust of their boards. They\u2019re not elected and people don\u2019t feel that they have their communities\u2019 best interests at heart.\u201d Elected hospital boards are one idea to make them \u201cmore responsive to the priorities and values of communities,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She said \u201cthere is a very big difference between what\u2019s happened to the smallest sites of the amalgamated hospitals and the stand-alone hospitals.\u201d The panel wants to see if amalgamations are working \u201cor if we should try something else in Ontario.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mehra encouraged people to make submissions of their own by email to info@ontariohc.ca.<\/p>\n