NEWS HEADLINES SOS meeting on Jan.11 at the Oaks was well attended. Petition results at the meeting were: 5% voted for option A:CKHA !magine project: Wallaceburg Residential Campus of Care Model 2% voted for option B: CKHA !magine project: Wallaceburg: Primary Care/Community Care Model 93% for option C: Renovate Current SDH building _________________________________________ Media Release
January 27, 2011
Public
Interest Groups Deeply Concerned About Undemocratic Process,
Drummond Commission & Public Service Cuts
Toronto – The McGuinty government is planning sweeping public service cuts and restructuring without public input and proper democratic processes, public interest groups revealed in a press conference this morning at Queen’s Park. The groups are concerned about the Drummond Commission, which was created by the McGuinty government to make recommendations to cut public services and budgets.
Don Drummond, a well-heeled member of the Toronto elite, has strong links to private health care interests and lobby groups. He has adopted a highly political role, conducting rounds of media interviews to sell his proposals even before the Ontario Legislature has had an opportunity to receive his report. At the same time, Premier Dalton McGuinty and Health Minister Deb Matthews are launching major policy changes through speeches to exclusive executive and corporate audiences.
The McGuinty government, which has been elected with a minority, failed to forge an agreement with opposition parties to set up the Standing Committees of the Legislature during the Fall Session. As such, there is no Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs and no Pre-Budget Hearings. In a minority government, the ruling party does not hold a majority on the standing committees. These committees have real powers to amend legislation and hold public hearings.
The Ontario Health Coalition and other public interest groups argue that the process is manipulative and inappropriate.
“Drummond is an extremely wealthy retired bank executive and does not in any way represent the values and needs of regular Ontarians. He selected a very narrow elite of hospital executives and pro-privatization lobbyists to consult while he was writing his report. When we and a few other groups met with him in early December – at our request - the report was already written,” noted Natalie Mehra, coalition director. “Despite no mention of these plans during the election only a few months ago, the McGuinty government has forged a mandate for the Drummond Commission that is extraordinarily biased towards privatization. It has virtually no public interest principles to protect the fairness and equity of Ontarians’ public services.”
“The Ontario Liberals’ budgeting and policy-making process in the past few months violates every democratic, open, good government principle,” added Duff Conacher, Board Member and Founding Director of Democracy Watch. “The public paid for the Drummond Report, yet the government has shut down the legislature without forming legislative committees, without any open hearings and without public input into the major policy changes ahead. As a minority government, the Liberals must compromise and be more open and democratic.”
“The Drummond Commission will be recommending a fundamental restructuring of how Ontario’s public services are produced and delivered. It would be unprecedented, given the magnitude of change envisioned, if a broad public consultation did not take place,” concluded Dr. Bryan Evans, professor of politics at Ryerson University.
For more information: Ontario Health Coalition office) 416-441-2502.
-- Ontario Health Coalition 15 Gervais Drive, Suite 305 Toronto, ON M3C 1Y8 www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca 416-441-2502 ______________________________________________________________________________________ Letter to the Editor from Jeff Wesley, Chairperson SOS So much for the positive words at the public meeting about the CKHA
working with SOS and the community. That all ended last week. The SOS
Executive, along with Sheldon Parsons, met with the CKHA in advance of the public
meeting in Wallaceburg (a public meeting by the way that was needed because the
CKHA once again failed to have a proper public meeting where you ACTUALLY ask
the community what they think) to get additional facts and figures. Our public meeting was open to all and it allowed community members to ask any question they wanted and to get an answer. On the speakers panel were MPP Monte McNaughton, the Warden of Lambton County / Mayor of St. Clair Township Steve Arnold, Walpole Island’s Director of Operations Allen Deleary, Sheldon Parsons and noted health care advocate Shirley Roebuck along with a packed room of concerned citizens at the Oak’s Inn. All of the options were explained, in the most unbiased manner possible, and the choice of the community was clear – renovation of our existing hospital was the preferred option provided the Province funded it to the same level as a new build which is 90% by the Province and 10% by the community. After our community meeting, with no notice to SOS (remember that SOS met with the CKHA prior to our public meeting) we were informed that the CKHA had earlier approached local media and provided an invite only tour of SDH to point out deficiencies in the building. CKHA also took the opport unity to dispute the $17 million renovation cost with the media, not with SOS, that was used at the public meeting in comparing options. The price tag now seemed to be $35 million for renovations and the CKHA stated that they will not consider the renovation option. Hmmm we thought they wanted community input. We all know and realize that SDH requires work. Even if the renovation costs are now $35 million (and they very well could be)simple math still tells us that even at $35 million with 90% provincial funding renovation remains the cheaper option with a community share of $3.5 million vs. $7 – 10 million for the other options. The last couple of weeks has been quite disappointing for two reasons. First - We tried to deal with the CKHA openly and honestly and they in turn went behind our backs to have an invite only meeting to tour SDH to try and undermine our efforts and the wishes of the community. A meeting we only learned about from our local media. Why was the CKHA afraid to invite SOS or local Councillors along for this tour? Second – The CKHA seems oblivious to the issue of costs and affordability. If the Province agrees to fund renovations at the same level as new builds then renovation of SDH is the least expensive solution both in terms of total costs, cost to the community and the ability to stagger the work (and hence pay for it) over a longer period of time. If given the choice who would not want a nice new hospital – we all would. However, we remain very concerned about the ability of the local communities to pay the required community share. Our concern is that if the community cannot pay their share the CKHA and others will use that excuse to scale back or change the new hospital into something less than what was expected. The way this past couple of weeks has unfolded has only enhanced this concern. As has been said many times we would rather have a less than perfect building with superior services (we already know we have superior staff there) than a brand new building with less services. By the way where are all of our SDH Board members who are supposed to represent us – let’s hear from you and how you voted on the options. Jeff Wesley Chairperson, Save Our Sydenham Committee _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Posted Jan. 19, 2012 Hospital officials downplay renovation optionWALLACEBURG - David Gough
Courier Press
Due to the costs and challenges of renovating the Sydenham campus hospital, it's unlikely it will happen. Ministry of Health consultants have deemed significant portions of the Wallaceburg hospital as "end of life" and according to the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, that's the reason why it's unlikely the ministry will support a renovation option as they have determined that there is no positive benefit. There are a number of reasons pointed out on the CKHA website why a renovation won't work, including the current state of the Wallaceburg hospital. CKHA officials took a Courier Press reporter through tours of both the Chatham and Wallaceburg CKHA campuses and showed the challenges that they face in their current facilities. Crowded hallways, unsanitary conditions, outdated heating and cooling systems and inadequate infection control are all concerns with the Sydenham facility. CKHA vice-president and chief financial officer Sarah Padfield said changes in medicine make the need for a new hospital facility in Wallaceburg a reality. She said a structural change is needed to run things efficiently. A renovation would be a difficult undertaking, Padfield said. She said estimates show it would cost almost double to update and renovate the building, rather than rebuild it. "And you're still renovating and updating and it's still sitting in the floodplain on that site," Padfield said. Plans for a new building have it being built behind the current hospital off the floodplain. The current hospital has undergone a few changes over the past few years, including a new roof. The problem, Padfield said is finding out where you stop putting money into the building to repair it. She said the Alliance doesn't want to be put into a position where they look back at spending a lot of money to update the hospital, and find out that they could've had a brand-new facility for a bit more. "We just renovated an old building that is just going to continually require that kind of investment. You're at that tipping point," Padfield said. Beth Hall, CKHA's director of support services, said there are structural issues with the building's envelope, where there the building is bowing in a few sections and bricks are coming loose. Years and years of water damage at the Wallaceburg hospital has created internal damage within the interior structure of the facility, Hall said. She added that all the windows at the Sydenham hospital have to be replaced, however it can't be fixed because it's intertwined with other things that have to be fixed. "You can't fix all the windows without fixing the building envelope," Hall said. "Which is millions and millions of dollars." Another issue with the Wallaceburg hospital is asbestos. Whenever there is a construction project at Sydenham, they have to account for asbestos removal, which is a significant amount of money. When Sydenham was built in the 1950s, it did not account for future changes."To meet new building codes with air exchanges and air quality, we don't have the ceiling heights between the floors to put that duct work in there," explained Hall, noting that ceiling heights are low. The space between the floors is just 2-3 feet, while 8-9 feet is needed to put duct work, cabling, fire suppression systems and things needed to bring the hospital up to current building codes and standards. "We can't bring this building up to code. Even if we invested multi-millions of dollars into it, it still wouldn't meet building code, it wouldn't meet infection control standards, it wouldn't meet all the new guidelines that are in place now for a current hospital," Hall said. CKHA staff deal with the facilities shortcomings as best they can. Denise Dodman, the interim manager for complex continuing care, family medicine at Sydenham said the hospital currently goes from one extreme to another temperature-wise, depending on the weather. In the hospital's continuing complex care rooms, window air conditioners help to keep the building cool on hot summer days. In the winter, it can be chilly in the hallways. Eleanor Groh, director of surgery, ambulatory care and women's and children's health, said there are issues with both the Chatham and Wallaceburg hospitals. Groh calls the hospital in Wallaceburg "antiquated." The Wallaceburg hospital does a lot of day surgeries. "That's a facility that we're always going to want to do those type of procedures in, because the facility itself is organized in a very efficient way to do that. We just have to get it updated," Groh said. Privacy, infection control and confidentiality are all concerns at both the Wallaceburg and Chatham hospitals due to the tight confines. The current Sydenham facility presents a lot of challenges for staff when it comes to infection control. Erika Vitale, an infection prevention and control analyst with the Alliance, said some of the challenges include; not enough hand washing sinks, not enough space to clearly separate clean and contaminated equipment. When it comes to air-borne isolation, Vitale said the CKHA doesn't have the best possible rooms for patients that may require air-borne precaution. Vitale said the size of the semi-private rooms at Sydenham also allow for less than two metres between patients. "Two metre spatial separation prevents the spread of droplets from one patients to the next, when someone is coughing or sneezing," Vitale said. To try and make more room for patients to get in and out of bed, they have moved the beds on an L-shaped angle. At Sydenham there are also some shared washrooms without hand washing sinks. "That doorknob is always going to be contaminated," Vitale said. "So it is challenging." Lisa Northcott, manager of medicine with the CKHA, said hallways are crowded at both the Chatham and Wallaceburg hospitals. "We don't have space to store our equipment. So a lot of it we have to keep in our corridors, which makes getting through the corridors difficult," Northcott said. The patient rooms are also small, making it difficult for patient's mobility.On its website, CKHA points out several factors that limit any renovation: the building footprint when expansion is needed; internal structures (support columns); ceiling heights; available space above the ceilings for mechanical systems (ductwork); and elevator/stair sizes and locations. The Alliance points out that renovations are also complex and disruptive for patients as well as staff and pose an inherent safety risk to everyone in close proximity to the affected areas. Article ID# 3438991 __________________________________________________________________________________ Wording of Petition C: To: Legislative Assembly of Ontario "Whereas the People are opposed to the demolition of Sydenham District Hospital in Wallaceburg and the building of a new Hospital on the same site, and "Whereas the People prefer the renovation of Sydenham District Hospital in Wallaceburg and support this option based on two conditions: A. The renovation (approx $17 million) can be done and is less costly than building a new building (costs of building a new facility range from $68 - $92 million) B. The Ministry of Health will provide the same level of funding for the renovations as a new hospital would receive (funding for hospital renovations from the Ministry of Health will need to equal 90%), and "Whereas this hospital closure will increase costs rather than save them, putting additional pressure on tax payers and the local economy, "We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows: That the Government of Ontario act now to ensure that Sydenham District Hospital in Wallaceburg is not closed and is instead renovated to remain a full service hospital". I affix my name is support. _______________________________________________________________________ Posted Dec. 27, 2011 Posted Dec.20 SOS to hold public meeting WALLACEBURG - David Gough Courier Press Frustrated with the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance's recent open houses regarding the future of Wallaceburg's Sydenham District Hospital, the Save Our Sydenham (SOS) group is holding its own public meeting. The meeting will be held at the Oaks Inn Cookhouse on Jan. 11. from 7-9 p.m. SOS chair Jeff Wesley said the open house held by the CKHA earlier this month to discuss the redevelopment of its aging hospitals, were too brief, did not allow group discussion and there were not enough ways in which citizens could express their concerns and their preferences. "The community of Wallaceburg and area needs a more detailed discussion of the options for SDH and better ways to communicate their choices to both the CKHA / LHIN and the Ministry of Health," Jeff Wesley said in an email sent to the Courier Press on Monday. The CKHA will be sending a list of options and their preference to the Ministry of Health by late January/early February. Among the items to be discussed at the meeting include, (as provided by SOS): - Detailed discussion on all of the options (options from CKHA plus renovation of SDH) - pros and cons. -Thoughts / feedback / input from local medical professionals -Question and Answer. -Have Your Say - SOS will have stations set up (during the entire meeting) so that people can quickly and easily express their views and preferences to all of the key decision makers (CKHA/LHIN/Ministry of Health/MPPs). The meeting will be open to all. Wallaceburg VS Chatham Once again health care and hospitals have divided Chatham-Kent. Again, it's Wallaceburg vs Chatham and Chatham vs Wallaceburg. Why? Is it because Chathamites are just miserable people? Or, perhaps, Wallaceburg and area citizens are difficult to get along with? Why is it that 100 people attended the Imagine Reconstruction Project public sessions at the Oaks Inn in Wallaceburg, and only 33 citizens attended the Chatham meetings? Could the reason be the same as the one that filled the Wallaceburg District Secondary School with a crowd of a thousand strong in March 2009? The LHIN, their expensive consultants, CKHA, and C-K Municipality, did not listen then, and are not listening now. And "clickers" aren't even involved! LHIN folks, get your act together, exercise your mandate, and engage the community, especially the Wallaceburg and area community BEFORE input is sought and approvals are granted to CKHA. Don't TELL us what's been decided. ASK us for our input. The same goes for the Imagine Project Steering Committee and CHKA. Consultants hired by the powers-that-be, take a lesson from the Veritas crew and leave! CKHA/Imagine Project personnel, START OVER! Begin with people who care, really care. They are the users of health care, and through their tax dollars, pay your wages and the services the Alliance provides. Yes, provincial mandates forced the Alliance. However, neither in provincial legislation nor the Alliance Agreement, (signed by Public General Hospital, St. Joseph Hospital and Sydenham District Hospital), is there anything to excuse what has been done to our beloved Sydenham. So, STOP IT and listen! Mayor Randy Hope and Chatham-Kent Councillors, lend us your collective ears. Leave a legacy of oneness, unity and fairness for all 110,000 citizens of C-K. No more Chatham vs Wallaceburg and vice versa. You may be gone in next election, but C-K will go on. So, listen to "the little sister to the north" as Bruce Corcoran so aptly put it. Either that or cut us loose! To the two new MPPs, rookies though you may be, listen! Monte McNaughton knows whereof we speak. His grandfather was a founding father of the Four Counties Hospital in Newbury. We will be in touch. Chathamites are nice people. Perhaps a bit selfish in not sharing the concerns for accessible health care with those living in North Lambton, Walpole Island and Wallaceburg. We forgive you. Wallaceburg and area folks are not difficult to get along with, most times. We are tired of being treated as second-class citizens. We will continue to fight. Will you help us? As to community support the way things stand presently? You be the judge. Wallaceburg vs Chatham _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Posted Nov. 22, 2011 Letter to the editor on Monday, Nov. 21 in the Chatham Daily News. Consider renovating the current Sydenham District Hospital I am writing this letter in support of the position taken by my father, Gary O'Flynn, in recent editions of CTW's sister publication, the Wallaceburg Courier Press. The issue in question is the fate of the Wallaceburg campus of the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, a.k.a. Sydenham District Hospital. I grew up in Wallaceburg hearing proud stories about "our Hospital." I'm not sure how many other residents of the larger municipality are aware of the 'Burg's legitimate claim to a special possessiveness about that facility: the people of Wallaceburg raised the money themselves to build that hospital! There were fundraising initiatives, payroll deduction plans, and local donations – both corporate and individual – that together amounted to the $ figure required to begin construction. I believe the town itself became liable for the inevitable mortgage; the fundraising effort did not end until the debt was paid in full. The salient point here is that when Wallaceburg was amalgamated into the larger Municipality of Chatham-Kent and SDH became part of the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, the citizens of Wallaceburg had long been accustomed to having their own hospital – nearby, adequate, and self-sufficient. As Gary pointed out in his letter, my brother was the 1,000th baby born at SDH, but he was not the last one. It'd probably be easier to count the families who cannot recount a personal story revolving around SDH than it would be to itemize all those births, deaths, operations, recoveries, and innumerable other important moments which have made SDH an integral part of so many of Wallaceburg's citizens' lives. I suggest that the fact that the public meeting held in Wallaceburg was the best-attended of any in the municipality indicates a level of interest and concern that merits more consideration before the Imagine Project committee makes a final recommendation to the Health Alliance. Apparently, people in Wallaceburg who oppose the 'tear down the old hospital and build a new one' option feel that pragmatism – SDH can be renovated, up-dated and improved at a substantially lower cost than the other proposal –is being sacrificed in the name of "progress." They object to mortgaging future generations with a huge debt they feel could be avoided by pursuing the option they, themselves, propose. Peter Mills, and other members of the Imagine Project steering committee: please take note. Deborah Brittan Chatham __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Posted Oct. 21 Input sought on !magine project****HOSPTIAL: Long term plans has $536 million pricetag****By Blair Andrews - Special to The Daily News****Posted 11 hours ago**** The Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is holding several public meetings to discuss proposals for re-developing the hospital sites in Chatham and Wallaceburg.**** The proposals, which include various options, were unveiled this week as part of a project billed as !magine.**** Jim Laforet, chair of the project and a CKHA board director, said the re-development is aimed at replacing aging buildings and out-of-date facilities.**** With the exception of the St. Joseph's wing that was built in Chatham in 2004, Laforet noted the other buildings are 40 to 60 years old.**** "So they have served us well...but they really have served us to the extent that they can, and they are reaching (their) end of life," said Laforet.**** In addition to updating the facilities, Laforet said the board is also looking at options that keep pace with the changes in healthcare.**** "There has just been a tremendous shift from really doing stuff where people are staying in hospital beds for a week at a time, to so many procedures that happen that day and you go home that day, or you're sent home the next day," he added.**** CKHA is holding a series of public meetings to discuss the proposed re-development of the two sites.**** One of the options in Chatham involves the construction of a six-storey tower on either the west side of the current building and the addition of one-storey building at the opposite end.**** The costs are estimated at $481 million for the westward expansion and $472 million for the eastward expansion.**** The second option for Chatham includes two separate construction phases to occur over 20 years.**** Phase one would involve constructing a five-storey building on the east side and a one-storey structure.**** The second phase would see a five-storey building constructed on the west side.**** The total estimated cost is $536 million.**** In Wallaceburg, one option involves a one or two-story model for a 25-bed campus at a cost of $92 million for two storeys or $87 million for one story.**** A second option calls for a primary/community care model that would be one storey. with no beds, at an estimated cost of $68 million.**** There is also another option, called the "Greenfield" proposal, that would see one new building constructed on one site to accommodate all the current and future services of CKHA.**** The cost is estimated at more than $600 million. A location has not been selected for this option.**** *While noting that he didn't have the details of the options yet, Jeff Wesley, chair of the Save Our Sydenham hospital in Wallaceburg, said a facility without beds would be a "non-starter" for the community.* *"If it will continue to have a 24-hour emergency department and if it will continue to have beds available to support the hospital and the work that they do, then I'm very interested in talking to them and the community to see how we can work together," he said.* *Wesley added the group doesn't want to take "a step down" from what already exists.* *"We want to make better what we have there, and if they are expecting to raise any money from the community, they are going to have to listen to that." Wesley said.* Saying that no decisions have been made yet, Laforet concurred with Wesley's comment about community support.**** Under Ministry of Health guidelines, Chatham-Kent would have to fund 10 per cent of the building costs and 100 per cent of furniture and equipment costs.**** As a result, a fund-raising campaign of $50-million might be needed.**** "We also want to make sure the community understands what we're planning to do and that the community is behind it," said Laforet.**** The first public meeting is will be held Oct.25 in Thamesville at the Brunner Community Centre from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.**** The other meetings are scheduled as follows:**** Oct. 26: Chatham YMCA multi-purpose room from 2 p.m. To 4 p.m. And from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.**** Oct: 27: Tilbury Arena - Ryder Room from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.**** *Nov: 2: Oaks Inn, Wallaceburg, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.***** Nov: 3: Blenheim fire hall board room from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.**** *More information, including the plans for the project can be seen online at http://www.ckha.on.ca/imagine/* HOSPITAL: Long term plans has $536 million pricetagBy Blair Andrews - Special to The Daily NewsThe Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is holding several public meetings to discuss proposals for re-developing the hospital sites in Chatham and Wallaceburg. The proposals, which include various options, were unveiled this week as part of a project billed as !magine. Jim Laforet, chair of the project and a CKHA board director, said the re-development is aimed at replacing aging buildings and out-of-date facilities. With the exception of the St. Joseph's wing that was built in Chatham in 2004, Laforet noted the other buildings are 40 to 60 years old. "So they have served us well...but they really have served us to the extent that they can, and they are reaching (their) end of life," said Laforet. In addition to updating the facilities, Laforet said the board is also looking at options that keep pace with the changes in healthcare. "There has just been a tremendous shift from really doing stuff where people are staying in hospital beds for a week at a time, to so many procedures that happen that day and you go home that day, or you're sent home the next day," he added. CKHA is holding a series of public meetings to discuss the proposed re-development of the two sites. One of the options in Chatham involves the construction of a six-storey tower on either the west side of the current building and the addition of one-storey building at the opposite end. The costs are estimated at $481 million for the westward expansion and $472 million for the eastward expansion. The second option for Chatham includes two separate construction phases to occur over 20 years. Phase one would involve constructing a five-storey building on the east side and a one-storey structure. The second phase would see a five-storey building constructed on the west side. The total estimated cost is $536 million. In Wallaceburg, one option involves a one or two-story model for a 25-bed campus at a cost of $92 million for two storeys or $87 million for one story. A second option calls for a primary/community care model that would be one storey. with no beds, at an estimated cost of $68 million. There is also another option, called the "Greenfield" proposal, that would see one new building constructed on one site to accommodate all the current and future services of CKHA. The cost is estimated at more than $600 million. A location has not been selected for this option. While noting that he didn't have the details of the options yet, Jeff Wesley, chair of the Save Our Sydenham hospital in Wallaceburg, said a facility without beds would be a "non-starter" for the community. "If it will continue to have a 24-hour emergency department and if it will continue to have beds available to support the hospital and the work that they do, then I'm very interested in talking to them and the community to see how we can work together," he said. Wesley added the group doesn't want to take "a step down" from what already exists. "We want to make better what we have there, and if they are expecting to raise any money from the community, they are going to have to listen to that." Wesley said. Saying that no decisions have been made yet, Laforet concurred with Wesley's comment about community support. Under Ministry of Health guidelines, Chatham-Kent would have to fund 10 per cent of the building costs and 100 per cent of furniture and equipment costs. As a result, a fund-raising campaign of $50-million might be needed. "We also want to make sure the community understands what we're planning to do and that the community is behind it," said Laforet. The first public meeting is will be held Oct.25 in Thamesville at the Brunner Community Centre from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The other meetings are scheduled as follows: Oct. 26: Chatham YMCA multi-purpose room from 2 p.m. To 4 p.m. And from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Oct: 27: Tilbury Arena - Ryder Room from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Nov: 2: Oaks Inn, Wallaceburg, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Nov: 3: Blenheim fire hall board room from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. More information, including the plans for the project can be seen online at www.ckha.on.ca/imagine/ _____________________________________________________________________ Oct. 21 The Ontario Health Coalition has signed onto this appeal. We are extremely concerned about proposals in these trade negotiations that would increase the costs of pharmaceuticals and facilitate more health care privatization, weaken existing health regulations and environmental protections and lead to the privatization of other public services as well as health care. For more information on CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) please go to http://www.canadians.org/trade/issues/EU/index.html ** ** *Trade Justice Network* *October 20, 2011 17:08 ET* *Over 80 European and Canadian Organizations Demand an End to Canada-EU Free-Trade Talks* OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Oct. 20, 2011) - Today, as a 9th round of Canada-EU free trade talks comes to an end in Ottawa, over 80 European and Canadian civil society groups demanded that political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic stop negotiating the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and release the offers now. "Our organizations say NO to this agreement, which has been negotiated for the sole benefit of transnational corporations at the expense of people's rights and of the protection of the environment," says the declaration. "Neither the European Union nor Canada has ever informed their populations of what is really at stake in these negotiations," it continues. "Requests and offers from each party have never been discussed nor revealed to the public. These negotiations are thus clearly a total denial of democracy." Today, International Trade Minister Ed Fast announced that Canada and the EU had successfully exchanged offers on services and investment. This follows an exchange of provincial and EU member state procurement and goods offers during the last round in Brussels this past July. Neither set of offers will be made public or subject to debate prior to the signing of a final deal, which the Harper government has said it would like to do early in 2012. The joint statement released today by Canadian and European civil society concludes that "trade agreements must promote cooperation and recognize common well-being, public interest, and human and environmental rights as more important than short-term private interests which benefit only transnational corporations." Instead, CETA "would encourage the privatization of the public sector, weaken and prevent social, health and environmental regulations, and protect investors' rights at the expense of democratic rights. "We therefore ask Canadian federal and provincial representatives, as well as representatives from the European Parliament and from the different national parliaments to refuse to ratify the CETA, and to act in total transparency regarding this agreement which is selling off our social rights, threatening environmental regulations and, more generally speaking, democracy itself." To read the statement, entitled "Free-trade agreement between the European Union and Canada: Corporations Must Not Make the Law," see http://tradejustice.ca. Contact Information Stuart Trew Trade Justice Network 647-222-9782 TJN.RCJ@gmail.com -- Ontario Health Coalition 15 Gervais Drive, Suite 305 Toronto, ON M3C 1Y8 http://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca 416-441-2502 _______________________________________________ OntarioHealthCoalition mailing list OntarioHealthCoalition@list.web.net http://list.web.net/lists/listinfo/ontariohealthcoalition Oct. 7 To: OHC Members and Supporters From: Natalie Mehra, Director Thank you for giving voice to the key health care issues in the Ontario election. Congratulations on the extraordinary effort by hundreds of volunteers who brought our campaign to life. During the months leading up to the election, we collectively: - Distributed more than 350,000 newsprint tabloids focused on the key health care issues and the damaging effect of tax cuts on health care and public services. - Were quoted in more than 100 media stories. - Held more than 20 all-candidates' meetings. - Held four town hall meetings across Niagara on the Niagara hospital cuts and C. Difficile outbreak. - Released two reports on key health care issues to the media across Ontario. - Mobilized more than 3,000 people to attend our health care rally and march outside the Ontario legislature. - Inspired thousands to join our election pledge web campaign. Together, we have continued to make the preservation and improvement of our public health system a top issue. No matter what they plan in private, no political party in Ontario will openly campaign on privatizing health care. While this is a good thing, it carries with it some risk. The public thinks health care is protected while, in fact, "back-door" privatization continues and is accelerating. So we need to redouble our efforts to expose the cuts to public health services and the deleterious impacts of privatization. With a minority government and serious financial issues facing our province, we have a challenging period ahead. We will kick off this new phase with our Assembly and Conference the weekend of November 19 & 20 at which we will provide a thorough briefing on Ontario's financial situation and its implications for health care. After the briefing and a report-in from affiliates and local coalitions across the province, we will debate and adopt our action plan for the next year. We have sent out registration forms by mail and email. We are expecting several hundred representatives from across the province to attend. Please register soon. We are proud of the work that we are able to achieve together. We hope you are too! Thank you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *October 7,2011 *Health Care Issues Significant in Closest Races of the Ontario Election * Toronto -- Health care cuts, particularly hospital cuts, were significant issues for the communities in many of the tightest ridings in yesterday's provincial election. The trend in rural communities did not favour Liberal incumbents. Though many factors comprise people's voting choices, the trend against the Liberal incumbents was evident in communities where local hospitals and emergency departments are under threat of closure. In many medium-sized and smaller communities, the local hospital ranks as one of the most important public institutions. Some examples: Northumberland -- Unpopular cuts to hospital services, including rehab, hospital beds and diabetes care, resulted in a lawn sign campaign calling on Liberal MPP Lou Rinaldi to defend his local hospital and stop the cuts. Mr. Rinaldi lost his seat last night. Sudbury -- The planned closure of the Memorial hospital site and a significant number of hospital beds -- has been extremely controversial in this community where doctors and patient groups have vociferously opposed. The Health Minister announced a one-year reprieve in June. Liberal MPP Rick Bartolucci openly advocated saving beds, pushing his own government whose policies favour shutting down the Memorial hospital and closing beds. He narrowly kept his seat last night. Perth-Wellington -- The proposed closure of the St. Mary's emergency department overnight has spawned a community movement in the affected portion of this riding. Liberal John Wilkinson lost his seat last night. Niagara Falls -- The closure of acute care beds, surgeries and emergency departments in Fort Erie and Port Colborne have been deeply unpopular. Despite his open advocacy against his own government's hospital cutting policies, Liberal incumbent Kim Craitor faced a difficult campaign. He kept his seat by a very narrow margin. Lambton-Kent-Middlesex -- The Liberal government has pursued a plan to close the acute care beds and the emergency department at the Wallaceburg hospital. Thousands of residents poured into public meetings and voiced their opposition. Though community opposition has put the plan on hold, the future of the hospital remains under threat. Liberal Maria Van Bommel lost her seat last night. *For more information: Ontario Health Coalition 416-441-2502 Ontario Health Coalition 15 Gervais Drive, Suite 305 Toronto, ON M3C 1Y8 http://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca 416-441-2502 Friday, September 23, 2011
Chatham-Kent Health Alliance in Need of Volunteers at Sydenham Campus
WALLACEBURG: September 23, 2011: Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is presently seeking additional volunteers to staff its Information Desk at Sydenham Campus. According to Chene Faulkner, CKHA’s Co-ordinator of Volunteer Resources, the volunteer roster needs bolstering due to winter vacations and illness. The role of Information Desk volunteers at the hospital is important and valued,” she said. “These men and women are often the first face that patients’ families, visitors and public will see, and they help people feel more comfortable and assist with wayfinding in the hospital.” Volunteer positions are also available in the Day Surgery, Recreation Therapy, Gift Shop and Continuing Care Inpatient Unit. Volunteer screening, orientation, training and uniform is provided. Health screening and signing a non-discloser (Confidentiality pledge) are requirements. Four-hour shifts are 8 am to noon or noon to 4 pm weekdays. Volunteer applications are available on-line at www.ckha.on.ca (click on Join our Team) or contact Volunteer Resources Office at 519-352-6401ext.8914.
FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK, TWITTER AND YOUTUBE
For more information, contact: Chene Faulkner, Volunteer Specialist Chatham-Kent Health Alliance 519-352-6401ext. 6485/8914 cfaulkner@ckha.on.ca _____________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________ >>>ELECTION ALERT! All Candidates’ Meeting on Healthcare Issues Where: Oak’s Inn, Wallaceburg When: September 27, 2011, 7PM Find out what is in store for: nursing homes, homecare, hospitals, OHIP, clinics, healthcare waiting lists and more! Come and Ask the Provincial Election Candidates The public is invited to ask questions of the candidates on healthcare issues. Free of charge. All welcome.
Sponsored by: Chatham Kent Health Coalition, Community Living Wallaceburg Contact for more information: Shirley Roebuck, 519-677-4460
For
Immediate Release
Monday, September 19, 2011
Chatham-Kent Health Alliance Welcomes Emergency Medicine Doctor
Chatham-Kent, September 19, 2011 -- Chatham-Kent Health Alliance welcomes Dr. Mateen Khan to the community.
Dr. Khan completed his medical education at Temple University in Philadelphia and his residency in Delaware. He has spent the last several years as staff physician in the emergency department in Buffalo, New York.
“Dr. Khan joins a dedicated group of physicians providing care in our emergency departments,” said Dr. Gary Tithecott, Chief of Staff at Chatham-Kent Health Alliance. “Emergency department physicians are especially important in smaller hospitals as they ease the burden on family doctors to provide coverage.”
Friendly people were the major draw to Chatham-Kent for Dr. Khan. “Friends brought me and the suburban, small town atmosphere made me decide to stay longer,” he explained.
Taking care of people, as a physician, was his childhood dream. “While other children wanted to be astronauts and dolphin trainers, I wanted to be a doctor,” said Dr. Khan.
Dr. Khan chose to pursue a career in emergency medicine “because that’s where the fun is.”
For more information, contact: Fannie Vavoulis, Medical Recruiter Chatham-Kent Health Alliance 519-437-6143 fvavoulis@ckha.on.ca ___________________________________________________________________________________________ July 24 SOS supporters: You have until July 30th to key in your health care issues. Log on to www.votehealthontario.ca. It only takes a minute. Conrad Noel SOS Vice chairman ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Posted July 21 www.votehealthontario.ca This is your chance to help define the key health care issues this election Every election health care polls as one of Ontarians' top priorities. So every political party pays lip service to health care. They all say they will fund it and improve it. Unless we make it happen, the real issues in health care don't get much real debate. For all of us who want to ensure that care is there, in our local communities, when we need it -- please help make your key issues in health care ones for which politicians have to make clear commitments leading into the provincial election in October. Take the Ontario Health Care Challenge! More than 500 people have given their input over the last few weeks. This is a great start, but to make this a truly democratic and effective process we need to build this number to thousands! It takes less than a minute. This is how we can make it happen, and this is how we can win! Please go to www.votehealthontario.ca Type in your key health care issues “Our challenge during the election is to identify the key issues that matter to the public and amplify those to the point that politicians have to make clear commitments to address them,” she concluded. “In the election we need clear commitments to safeguard local health care services and improve access to public health care.” _______________________ Read more>>> This is the first phase of a three phase project. Phase 1: Through the month of June, Ontarians are invited to visit www.votehealthontario.ca and input their key health care issues/experiences (eg. cancelled surgery or can’t find family doctor). The issues will show up on the site as people type them in. Phase 2: Through July and August, we will invite Ontarians to vote for their priorities. The results will be tallied and their priorities will become an election pledge. Phase 3: In late August/early September the Coalition will ask Ontarians to take the pledge to help make their priorities the key health care election issues. They will be able to see how many people in each electoral riding have taken the pledge. If thousands of Ontarians join in, we can make sure that the political parties are compelled to make clear commitments on these issues leading into the election. Ontario Health Coalition 15 Gervais Drive, Suite 305 Toronto, ON M3C 1Y8 www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca 416-441-2502 ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Posted July 18 From: ontariohealthcoalition-
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2011 11:52 PM To: ontariohealthcoalition@list.web.net Subject: [OHC] from Natalie -this is when it really matters- can you join? Sept 13 rally during the election campaign To: OHC members, contacts and supporters From: Natalie Mehra, Director Can you please distribute this as widely as possible? We are heading into Ontario's election campaign. Election day is October 6 and the campaign will get very serious after Labour Day. This is the time when action really matters, and we have planned the date of this mass rally accordingly. For all of you who have worked to save rural hospital ERs and services with us over the last four years; for all who have stood up against hospital cuts in your town; for all who have worked to improve access to longer-term, chronic and restorative care in home care, hospitals and nursing homes, and to improve standards of care; for all who are concerned about poor access to primary health care (nurse practitioners, doctors and health teams) in your communities; and for all who want to protect health care as a public not-for-profit service and stop privatization... this call is for you. Make your voices heard during the election campaign when it counts the most. We can make a difference if we organize in large enough numbers and if we insist on concrete commitments for these health care issues that matter to our communities. Do let us know if you are organizing a group to come out. I look forward to seeing you there! Thank you. RALLY to safeguard Public Health Care for people, not for profit Queen's Park Toronto Tuesday, September 13 12 o'clock noon rally~march down hospital row~commitments from political partiesIn the provincial election this October WE NEED CLEAR COMMITMENTS TO SAFEGUARD LOCAL HEALTH CARE SERVICES & IMPROVE ACCESS TO CARE In polls, health care ranks at the top of the public's agenda. Every political party will promise to fund and improve health care. But lip-service is not enough. Ontarians need clear commitments. We will be inviting each of Ontario's political parties to attend and make clear commitments to all of us on key issues to protect and improve local public health care services. With a huge crowd, they won't have any option. Improved access to services in our local communities restore hospital beds & services to reduce ER backlogs, hospital-acquired infections and cancelled surgeries; protect local hospitals and services from closure; take action to address severe staffing shortages; and improve access to primary health care (nurse-led clinics, community health centres and physicians). Comprehensive care for Ontario patients and seniors a clear right to access needed chronic, rehabilitative and long term care whether a patient is in a hospital, a long term care home or home care. Equitable non-profit and public care all improvements and new capacity built in public non-profit agencies and institutions. Stop home care competitive bidding, user fees and for-profit health care privatization. GET ON THE BUS! Please call to book your seat. No bus(es) from your area? Please let us know if you can organize a bus from your community at ohc@sympatico.ca or 416-441-2502. Sarnia/Lambton Arlene 519-542-1895 Windsor Katha 519-259-8100 St. Marys Gayle 519-284-8072 Chatham/Kent Shirley 519-677-4474 Port Elgin/Grey/Bruce Len 519-389-4490 London Jeff 519-473-6191 or Shirley 519-842-3498 Guelph Magee 519-767-0084 Niagara Sue 905-932-1646 Kingston Dan 613-549-8399 Ottawa Marlene 613-222-8392 Peterborough Roy 705-745-2446 Northumberland Peggy 905-885-4005 Burk's Falls/Huntsville/Bracebridge Barb - 705-783-4431 Oshawa Charlie 905-728-5715 Brampton Jagtar 416-879-0963 Toronto U of T Students for Medicare will be gathering on campus and marching over to join - Stephanie 905-780-8642 -------- Volunteers are needed to help organize in our Toronto and Niagara offices. Please call or email us if you can come in and help out -- 416-441-2502 or ohc@sympatico.ca and let us know that you are volunteering for the rally.Floats and visuals are being organized. Can you help to organize/make one? Please let us know -- 416-441-2502 or ohc@sympatico.caMusicians/drummers/stilt-walkers are welcome! Let us know if you are able to come out! 416-441-2502 or ohc@sympatico.caHospital row -- for those of you that work on -- or are families/visitors of patients in -- "hospital row" (University Ave.) in Toronto: we are organizing for as many people as possible to come out to line the sidewalks and support the rally. Please let us know if you can join in/help out: 416-441-2502 or ohc@sympatico.caSpecial needs? call or email us and we will make arrangements with you: 416-441-2502 or ohc@sympatico.ca-- Ontario Health Coalition 15 Gervais Drive, Suite 305 Toronto, ON M3C 1Y8 www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca 416-441-2502 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Posted July 12 The Chatham Kent Community Health Centres are under an urgent timeline to get the current government to release additional dollars to the Ministry of Health so that it can clear the backlog of CHC capital projects. If the funds are not released by an important cabinet meeting on July 15th - it could mean that the permanent sites for the Chatham-Kent Community Health Centres could be delayed by up to seven years.
It is our hope that you will circulate or gather signatures on the attached petition and return it to the Chatham-Kent Community Health Centre, 30 McNaughton Ave., Wallaceburg by Wednesday July 13th. You could also call the Health Centre and we could pick it up. 519 397 5455 We are very proud of what the Community Health Centres offer to Chatham Kent, however, we know that our CHC's can provide so much more to our community if the promise is kept. Thank you for your assistance. Bonnie Burke VP, Board of Directors Chatham-Kent Community Health Centres 150 Richmond Street Chatham, ON N7M 1N9 Telephone 519 397 5455 Fax 519 397 5497 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate ReleaseThursday, June 23, 2011Chatham-Kent Health Alliance Launches New VisionChatham-Kent: Thursday, June 23, 2011 -- After a process of internal engagement, community input and discussion, the Tri-Board of Directors unveiled a new vision statement for Chatham-Kent Health Alliance (CKHA). An Exceptional Community Hospital Setting Standards – Exceeding Expectations "We are really proud and excited about the new vision and what it will mean for CKHA’s future," said Mike Grant, Chair, Strategic Planning Committee. ""What resonated with the Committee is its clarity – quite simply, we want to be an exceptional community hospital. We think this statement will resonate with our staff, physicians, volunteers and community, and we’re looking forward to seeing how the organization lives this vision in future." The vision statement was a key outcome of the Alliance’s strategic planning process. The 2011-2013 Strategic Plan and vision statement was approved by the Tri-Board and sets a course for the future. The Strategic Plan also builds on the strong foundation already in place by affirming the four strategic directions of patients, people, innovation and performance. CKHA aims to provide exceptional care, to attract and retain exceptional talent, to develop exceptional ideas and to be a hospital with ongoing exceptional performance. The 2011-2013 plan identifies strategies and action plans that will help the Alliance achieve its goal of becoming an exceptional community hospital that sets standards and exceeds expectations. "We are committed to demonstrating how we are living our strategic plan by sharing our exceptional stories and highlighting our performance and quality achievements regularly and for the duration of this plan," said Colin Patey, President & CEO. "We’re excited to be using dynamic communication tools – such as our Strategic Plan microsite and social media – to better communicate stories and successes worthy of an exceptional community hospital." In the months and years ahead, staff, physicians and volunteers will be working towards the newly adopted strategic goals and directions to exemplify the new vision. CKHA will be tracking and reporting on the progress of the strategic plan on a regular basis. In September, the Strategic Planning website will be formally launched and will feature stories of how CKHA is living the vision. The site will also act as an archive of CKHA`s exceptional stories of patients, people, innovation and performance. Please visit our interactive website at www.ckha.on.ca and click on the Strategic Plan icon for more details or to provide feedback on CKHA’s 2011-2013 Strategic Plan.Follow us on facebook, Twitter and YouTube Media Spokesperson: Colin Patey President & CEO Chatham-Kent Health Alliance (519) 437-6001 Photo available from Communications & Public Affairs. Contact Mac Lai at 519.352.6401 x5119 _________________________________________________________________________________________
Posted June 28
For Immediate ReleaseThursday, June 23, 2011New Volunteers Join Chatham-Kent Health Alliance Boards of DirectorsCHATHAM-KENT, Thursday, June 23, 2011 -- At the June 23 Annual General Meetings of Sydenham District, Public General and St. Joseph’s Hospitals, volunteer Boards were appointed as follows. Sydenham District Hospital Allan Klinck, Gary Martin, Brian Slack, Randy Smith, Ron Tack (Vice-Chair), Paul Weese (Chair), and Wendy Weston. St. Joseph’s Hospital Carolynn Barko, Mark Isherwood (Vice-Chair), Fr. Michael Michon, Judith Pascoe, Gail Rumble, Jennifer Wilson, and Jon Wood (Chair). Public General Hospital Gail Baldwin, Mike Grant, Jane Havens, Jim Laforet, Aileen Murray, Brenda Richardson (Vice-Chair) and Wayne Schnabel (Chair). The following individuals were appointed as Community Representatives to a Tri-Board Committee: George Duquette, Ron Fleming, Leah McArthur, Liz Meidlinger, Martin VanBommel and Judy VanderPol. The following are members of the Tri-Board in an ex-officio capacity by virtue of their offices: Dr. Gary Tithecott, Chief of Medical Staff; Dr. Wally Pakulis, President of Medical Staff, Crystal Houze, Chief Nursing Executive, and Colin Patey, President and CEO. The three hospital Boards function as a Tri-Board -- focusing on strategic planning, Mission, Vision and Values, quality and performance monitoring, financial and management oversight, risk identification and oversight, stakeholder communication and accountability, governance and legal compliance. Board nominations are made through an open advertisement process by a Joint Nominating Committee and confirmed at the annual general meetings. For more information about the Boards of Directors, Tri-Board meeting dates, or to view "Board Highlights" published after each monthly meeting, go to CKHA’s website
Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is a partnership of Public General, FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK + TWITTER Media Contacts regarding Board Appointments: Board Chairs Paul Weese (519)683 - 4172 Wayne Schnabel (519)674-0222 Jon Wood (519)351-1447 __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Posted June 17
Log on to: www.votehealthontario.ca
Your chance to help define the key health care issues this election
Every election health care polls as one of Ontarians' top priorities. So every political party pays lip service to health care. They all say they will fund it and improve it.
Unless we make it happen, the real issues in health care don't get much real debate.
For all of us who want to ensure that care is there, in our local communities, when we need it -- please help make your key issues in health care ones for which politicians have to make clear commitments leading into the provincial election in October.
More than 100 people have given their input over the last few days. This is a great start.
But to make this a truly democratic and effective process, we need to build this number to thousands of Ontarians participating.
It takes less than a minute.
Please go www.votehealthontario.ca
Type in your key health care issues
Read more>>>
This is the first phase of a three phase project.
Phase 1: Through the month of June, Ontarians are invited to visit www.votehealthontario.ca and input their key health care issues/experiences (eg. cancelled surgery or can’t find family doctor). The issues will show up on the site as people type them in.
Phase 2: Through July and August, we will invite Ontarians to vote for their priorities. The results will be tallied and their priorities will become an election pledge.
Phase 3: In late August/early September the Coalition will ask Ontarians to take the pledge to help make their priorities the key health care election issues. They will be able to see how many people in each electoral riding have taken the pledge. If thousands of Ontarians join in, we can make sure that the political parties are compelled to make clear commitments on these issues leading into the election.
“Health care consistently ranks as a top issue for Ontarians in elections,” noted Natalie Mehra, coalition director. “Every political party will promise to fund and support health care. But what about specific issues like waiting for a nursing home bed, or not enough homecare? Lip service to health care is not enough. Ontarians need clear commitments on the key issues that matter in our communities.”
“Our challenge during the election is to identify the key issues that matter to the public and amplify those to the point that politicians have to make clear commitments to address them,” she concluded. “In the election we need clear commitments to safeguard local health care services and improve access to public health care.”
-------------------------------
Ontario Health Coalition 15 Gervais Drive, Suite 305 Toronto, ON M3C 1Y8 www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca 416-441-2502 ______________________________________________________________________________________
June 3
Hi everyone – please see attached letter and invitation to the upcoming AGM on June 23rd. Additional material will be coming to you in the next couple weeks. Please note that it’s important to confirm your attendance for the AGM so that we have adequate seating available. With the looming mail strike, it would b helpful if you share this information with other known SDH members who don’t have e-mail access, although the letter and notice will be put into the mail for them. Nick Brownlee (Mrs) Senior Executive Assistant & Governance Co-Ordinator
Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, PO Box 2030 Chatham, ON N7M 5L9 Tel: 519-437-6001 Fax: 519-436-2522 nbrownlee@ckha.on.ca http://www.ckha.on.ca _________________________________________________________________________________ JOINT ANNUAL MEETING MEMBERS of the CORPORATION and REPORT TO THE COMMUNITY Public General Hospital Society of Chatham Sydenham District Hospital St. Joseph's Health Services Association of Chatham, Inc. Notice is hereby given that the Annual General Meetings of the three hospital corporations noted above, collectively operating as Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, will be held on Thursday, June 23, 2011 On the Riverbank
Outside the Chatham Campus Emergency Department At 3:00 p.m. For the purpose of -
1. receiving reports including the report of operations for the year ended March 31, 2011 2. the election of the Boards of Directors for 2011-2012 3. approval of by-law amendments 4. the appointment of auditors for 2011-2012 Only Members in good standing of the Corporations are eligible to vote at the Annual General Meetings. General public are welcome to attend as observers. Kindly confirm your attendance at 437-6001 or by e-mail to nbrownlee@ckha.on.ca no later than June 17th to enable appropriate seating arrangements and distribution of voting cards. ____________________________________________________________________________________________ May 12 Due to circumstances beyond my control, our Save Our Sydenham website has been off line for the past month. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. I know that many loyal SOS supporters log on regularly to see what is happening to our hospital and to health care in general. I will do my best to keep everyone up to date. If you want to contact us, just click on Contact us (above News Headlines).
Conrad Noel, SOS Vice Chairman __________________________________________________________________________________ Posted May 5 NEWS RELEASE Chatham-Kent Health Alliance For Immediate Release Thursday, April 28, 2011 CKHA’s Oncology Kiosk Allows Patients to Self Report / Improve Communication Closer to Home CHAHTAM-KENT: The Oncology Department at Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, with the support of Cancer Care Ontario and the Windsor Regional Cancer Centre has launched a new electronic patient assessment tool – ESAS using the “ISAAC (Interactive Symptom Assessment and Collection) computer software system”. The Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS), the gold standard for symptom assessment is currently being utilized by regional cancer centres and now by Chatham-Kent Health Alliance. It is an evidence-based self reporting system that gives the patient the opportunity to electronically self report on their specific symptoms and needs prior to their personal appointment with the healthcare professional. “The patients rate the intensity of symptoms in areas such as pain, shortness of breath, nausea, depression, anxiety and thinking. The results are securely transferred, electronically, to the patient’s health record at the Windsor Regional Cancer Clinic and printed locally to trigger necessary conversations and actions. Now, the information is immediately available to assist the doctors and nurses to verify patient problems and offer help before problems become worse,” said Nancy Snobelen, Program Director for Rehabilitation, Complex Continuing Care and Chronic Disease Management at Chatham-Kent Health Alliance. The kiosk is located in a specific area within the Oncology Unit to provide privacy to patients when filling out the tool. “The kiosk has a user friendly touch screen that I easily accessed with my health card and provided password. It asks 10 questions based on how you feel when you arrive. You can review your results same day and receive a print out that compares and shows your ongoing progress. It is such an easier and faster way to communicate with your doctors and nurses,” said Wayne Stoehr, Oncology patient at Chatham-Kent Health Alliance. “As a Blenheim resident, I really like this system and the fact it’s closer to home.” Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) provided the software, the kiosk set-up and will support ongoing training and technical support for the kiosk. The Pretty in Pink group have donated funds through the Foundation of the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance to provide residual funds for the Kiosk costs. The Chatham-Kent Health Alliance Oncology Unit is a Level 4 satellite outpatient referral centre aligned with the Windsor Regional Cancer Centre (WRCC) and the London Regional Cancer Centre (LRCP) serving over 200 Chemotherapy patients per month. The Unit provides timely, safe access to high quality systemic treatment to Chatham-Kent residents who wish to receive chemotherapy closer to home. For more information contact: Nancy Snobelen. Program Director Rehabilitation, Complex Continuing Care and Chronic Disease Management Chatham-Kent Health Alliance (519) 352-6400 ext 6079 _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Posted March 27, 2011 Read this story. It could save your life or someone you love.
NURSE'S HEART ATTACK EXPERIENCE
This has been passed on from an ER nurse and is the best description of this event that she had ever heard. Please read, pay attention. FEMALE HEART ATTACKS
I was aware that female heart attacks are different, but this is the best description I've ever read. Women and heart attacks (Myocardial Infarction). Did you know that women rarely have the same dramatic symptoms that men have when experiencing heart attack ... you know, the sudden stabbing pain in the chest, the cold sweat, grabbing the chest & dropping to the floor that we see in the movies. Here is the story of one woman's experience with a heart attack. I had a heart attack at about 10 :30 PM with NO prior exertion, NO prior emotional trauma that one would suspect might've brought it on.
I was sitting all snugly & warm on a cold evening, with my purring cat in my lap, reading an interesting story my friend had sent me, and actually thinking, 'A-A-h, this is the life, all cozy and warm in my soft, cushy Lazy Boy with my feet propped up.
A moment later, I felt that awful sensation of indigestion, when you've been in a hurry and grabbed a bite of sandwich and washed it down with a dash of water, and that hurried bite seems to feel like you've swallowed a golf ball going down the oesophagus in slow motion and it is most uncomfortable. You realize you shouldn't have gulped it down so fast and needed to chew it more thoroughly and this time drink a glass of water to hasten its progress down to the stomach. This was my initial sensation---the only trouble was that I hadn't taken a bite of anything since about 5:00 p.m.
After it seemed to subside, the next sensation was like little squeezing motions that seemed to be racing up my SPINE (hind-sight, it was probably my aorta spasming), gaining speed as they continued racing up and under my sternum (breast bone, where one presses rhythmically when administering CPR).
This fascinating process continued on into my throat and branched out into both jaws. 'AHA!! NOW I stopped puzzling about what was happening -- we all have read and/or heard about pain in the jaws being one of the signals of an MI happening, haven't we? I said aloud to myself and the cat, 'Dear God, I think I'm having a heart attack!'
I lowered the footrest dumping the cat from my lap, started to take a step and fell on the floor instead. I thought to myself, If this is a heart attack, I shouldn't be walking into the next room where the phone is or anywhere else ... but, on the other hand, if I don't, nobody will know that I need help, and if I wait any longer I may not be able to get up in moment.
I pulled myself up with the arms of the chair, walked slowly into the next room and dialed the Paramedics .. I told her I thought I was having a heart attack due to the pressure building under the sternum and radiating into my jaws. I didn't feel hysterical or afraid, just stating the facts. She said she was sending the Paramedics over immediately, asked if the front door was near to me, and if so, to unbolt the door and then lie down on the floor where they could see me when they came in.
I unlocked the door and then lay down on the floor as instructed and lost consciousness, as I don't remember the medics coming in, their examination, lifting me onto a gurney or getting me into their ambulance, or hearing the call they made to St. Jude ER on the way, but I did briefly awaken when we arrived and saw that the Cardiologist was already there in his surgical blues and cap, helping the medics pull my stretcher out of the ambulance. He was bending over me asking questions (probably something like 'Have you taken any medications?'' but I couldn't make my mind interpret what he was saying, or form an answer, and nodded off again, not waking up until the Cardiologist and partner had already threaded the teeny angiogram balloon up my femoral artery into the aorta and into my heart where they installed 2 side by side stents to hold open my right coronary artery.
I know it sounds like all my thinking and actions at home must have taken at least 20-30 minutes before calling the Paramedics, but actually it took perhaps 4-5 minutes before the call, and both the fire station and St. Jude are only minutes away from my home, and my Cardiologist was already to go to the OR in his scrubs and get going on restarting my heart (which had stopped somewhere between my arrival and the procedure) and installing the stents.
Why have I written all of this to you with so much detail? Because I want all of you to know what I learned first hand.
My female friends, your symptoms might not be exactly like mine, so I advise you to call the Paramedics if ANYTHING is unpleasantly happening that you've not felt before.
It is better to have a 'false alarm' visitation than to risk your life guessing what it might be!
2. Note that I said ''Call the Paramedics.'' And if you can, take an aspirin. Ladies, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! Do NOT try to drive yourself to the ER you are a hazard to others on the road.
Do NOT have your panicked husband who will be speeding and looking anxiously at what's happening with you instead of the road.
Do NOT call your doctor -- he doesn't know where you live and if it's at night you won't reach him anyway, and if it's daytime, his assistants (or answering service) will tell you to call the Paramedics. He doesn't carry the equipment in his car that you need to be saved! The Paramedics do, principally OXYGEN that you need ASAP. Your Dr. will be notified later.
3. Don't assume it couldn't be a heart attack because you have a normal cholesterol count. Research has discovered that a cholesterol elevated reading is rarely the cause of an MI (unless it's unbelievably high and/or accompanied by high blood pressure). MI's are usually caused by long-term stress and inflammation in the body, which dumps all sorts of deadly hormones into your system to sludge things up in there.
Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep.
Let's be careful and be aware. The more we know, the better chance we could survive.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Thursday, March 24, 2011 National Doctors Day Pays Tribute to Our Physicians CHATHAM-KENT, Thursday, March 24, 2011 -- Have you had the opportunity to say thank you to a physician that has impacted your life in a special way? On March 30, 2011 join Chatham-Kent Health Alliance as we celebrate National Doctor’s Day and shine the light on the physicians who work tirelessly every day to keep their patients and our community healthy. Over 120 local doctors touch lives, show compassion and provide quality healthcare, dedicating their lives to improving the health and wellbeing of their patients. A simple phone call, small token or thank you card are just some of the kind gestures that patients, their families and healthcare providers can use to brighten this annual day of recognition for physicians. Chatham-Kent Health Alliance’s Chief of Staff, Dr. Gary Tithecott, said, "Doctor’s Day gives our community an opportunity to offer our appreciation to the local physicians in Chatham-Kent. Their dedication, knowledge and respect for patients and their families who seek medical care in our hospital and community is something we value highly. " The first Doctor's Day was observed on March 30, 1933 in Winder, Georgia. Eudora Brown Almond, wife of Dr. Charles B. Almond, made a decision to set aside a day to honour physicians. This first day of recognition included the mailing of greeting cards and placing flowers on graves of deceased doctors. The red carnation is commonly used as the symbolic flower representing love, charity, sacrifice, bravery and courage. For more information, please contact: Dr. Gary Tithecott, Chief of Staff Chatham-Kent Health Alliance 519-352-6401 ext. 6092 _______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Posted March 23
Chatham-Kent
Chatham-Kent Welcomes New Family Physician to Wallaceburg CHATHAM-KENT, March 23, 2011 --The Chatham-Kent Family Health Team (CKFHT) and Chatham-Kent Health Alliance (CKHA) are delighted to announce the recruitment of a new family physician to the Wallaceburg community. Dr. Will Saxena* is a family medicine physician, specializing in geriatric medicine with an emphasis on geriatric neurology, osteoporosis and metabolic bone disease. He completed a fellowship in geriatrics at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City. He served his residency in family medicine at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. He earned his medical degree at the Maulana Azad Medical College (University of Delhi) in New Delhi, India. As of April 1st, 2011, Dr. Saxena will be joining Drs. Dennis Atoe, Emer Dudley and Robert Mayo at CKFHT’s satellite site, the Wallaceburg Community Medical Centre, 30 McNaughton Ave. He will have privileges at CKHA and will be providing Emergency Department care at both campuses. The Family Health Team Board wishes to acknowledge the assistance of CKHA’s Medical Recruitment Office, the Chatham-Kent Physician Recruitment and Retention Committee, and the personal and individual efforts of the Wallaceburg physicians and Rob Watson, Wallaceburg resident and Board Member of the CKFHT. Dr. Saxena, who enjoyed site visits in Chatham and Wallaceburg in 2010, said, "The medical professionals and the recruitment team have been very open and welcoming and I look forward to working with my physician colleagues in both Chatham and Wallaceburg." Dr. Saxena is accepting patients who do not currently have a family physician. Patients must register with Health Care Connect at (800)445-1822. This is the first family physician to be recruited to Wallaceburg in approximately a decade. His recruitment was aided by proceeds to the Foundation of CKHA’s Every Life Counts campaign. For interview opportunity contact: Laura Johnson, Executive Director Chatham-Kent Family Health Team 519-354-2172 ext 230 * Pronounced Sax- EE-nah _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Posted March 23
CKHA CEO identifies with Wallaceburg's passion WALLACEBURG - David Gough Courier Press New Chatham-Kent Health Alliance CEO and president Colin Patey identifies with Wallaceburg's passion for its hospital. Patey, who has been at the helm of the CKHA since July of 2010, grew up in a remote village in northwestern Newfoundland. He said he sees the passion that Wallaceburg has in terms of community spirit and what they want to achieve, something he said he identifies with. Patey was the guest speaker at the Wallaceburg Rotary dinner held last Thursday. He spoke about himself and his travels. He also talked about what brought him to Chatham-Kent and the challenges and issues the Alliance is facing and taking on. "I am a passionate person myself," Patey said. "When I believe in something then I am prepared to advocate for it." The way that health care is delivered is changing, not only in Wallaceburg, but in Ontario and Canada. Patey said delivering health care is full of challenges, such as the shortage of skilled doctors, nurses and other people who deliver health care services. The youngest of 11 brothers and sisters, he was not only the first person in his family to go to post-secondary education, he was the first person in his village to move on to higher education. Living in a small town, the residents of Patey's village had to go distances for health care. They also had to hang on to the health services that they had. Patey said there is no doubt that a new health care facility is needed in Wallaceburg. He said experts in health care will help the CKHA to tell them what a new framework of health care will look like in Wallaceburg. "There is a job to get people to buy in to a new future and the best future for the entire community." Before he settled down in Chatham-Kent, Patey has worked around the world. Patey said he has been to 50 different countries across the globe. He has worked as a hospital professional in Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East. Patey said he has enjoyed his first eight months on the job with the CKHA. "I've enjoyed the challenge of introducing myself and getting to know the challenges of the job," Patey said. CKHA is a high-performing organization, something Patey knew before he started the job. "But, I also believe that I can make some changes. Do some tweaking to things that will help CKHA continue to be a high-performing organization and serve the needs of this community," Patey said. Having to fill a couple of senior staff vacancies by hire two new vice-presidents, was among Patey's challenges in his first few months. "I believe I have very competent people who have roots in the community and I believe our new team will be here for some time to come." _________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Posted March 22
Sydenham District Hospital Membership
To all:
If you haven't done so yet, please make sure to renew your Sydenham District Hospital Membership.
These are due March 31st. If you miss the 31st, you will not have a vote at the 2011 Annual Meeting.
A membership form is availabel by contacting Sheldon or you may also get one at Town Hall.
Completed Membership forms can be dropped off at my house 91 Highbury Cres or at Cathy Patterson house at 67 Baxter or left at Town Hall.
Please make your membership fee of $10 per person payable by cheque payable to SDH Corporation to create a paper trail.
Sheldon ________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Posted March 5
“Save Our Sydenham” Submission Regarding the Rural and Northern Health Care
Framework/Plan Stage One Report Ministry of Health and Long Term Care February 27, 2011 The “Save Our Sydenham” Committee is a local community action committee, whose mandate is to ensure that the Sydenham campus of the Chatham Kent Health Alliance continues to function and serve Wallaceburg and its’ rural catchment area, as a full serve hospital, i.e. as a hospital with a full service Emergency department, in-patient beds continuing care beds, and support services of Laboratory and Diagnostic imaging capabilities. The committee has been in existence for approximately 3 years, and has been fully involved with LHIN and provincial government plans for changing health care in our area. It is recognized that the panel did extensive research about accessibility to health care, and used numerous sources to create their report. It was decided that public consultations were to take place after the report was created. Several members of our committee and numerous members of the Wallaceburg area were able to attend the mid-day meeting in Petrolia, ON, on February 18, 2011. At that meeting, the audience was asked to respond to 6 questions, which were based on different parts of the Panel’s report. This submission holds the committee’s thoughts and concerns about the Stage One report from the Rural and Northern Health Care Panel. There are several items within the report that we agree, are priorities: The creation of a framework, directions and guidelines to guide health care planning for rural and northern Ontario. The recognition that rural residents, health providers and other stakeholders must be active participants in health care planning for their communities. The inclusion of transportation, ambulance and patient transfers in the recommendations. The recommendation to create one point of accountability within the Ministry of Health focused on the needs of rural and northern Ontarians. However, even these statements need to be more specific, and they should be aimed at protecting all those that live in rural, northern and remote areas of our province. There is little mention of the role of small rural hospitals in the Panel’s report. We believe that access to health care begins and ends with the small community hospitals. There are numerous statements within the report that the SOS committee hold concerns about: There is a heavy emphasis on “access to health care” and little mention of the use of small community hospitals. The definition of “rural” seems to be at odds with others’ definitions; P. Hoy, MPP, assured the SOS committee that the Sydenham campus in Wallaceburg was a rural hospital, some time ago. What is a “local hub”? Can we count on a community being defined in the traditional way, or will the government re-define “communities” according to health care services? Distance to care, and amount of time to care are unclear: does this include accessibility to small community hospitals for stabilization, or does it mean access to in larger centres? Does it mean time to an Emergency room in a larger centre where a client will sit and wait or does it mean access to the beginning of the health care treatment, by a nurse of doctor? Distance to care for other needed health care services, e.g. continuing care, rehabilitation services, home care are not addressed. Accessibility to health care does not always mean acute hospital care. The recommendation to establish referral centres, the “Health Care System Collaboration” is also unclear, Will there be one or will each region /LHIN have one? Who will run this collaboration? Will it be privatized? Will dollars meant for front-line health care in Ontario be taken to fund these new programs? How much input will private companies have in the creation and running of these new programs? The report has stated in several places that public engagement is to be used. What kind of public engagement? Will the public have a meaningful voice in their regional health care? Will the “engagement” be transparent and democratic? Will meetings be held, after the fact, to notify the public and hear its’ concerns? If that is the case it is not good enough. There is no explanation of what Standards are to be used for health care and its’ outcomes. LHIN executives and personnel do not have the expertise to state what health care outcomes should be. Professional organizations should be engaged to ensure that health care standards pertaining to all aspects of health care are maintained. In some areas health care standards are not mentioned at all. Why did the Panel or the government not take this opportunity to create standards of care for long-tern care, and nursing homes? Where is the public accountability in the Panel’s report? The LHIN is ultimately not responsible ad they report to the MOHLTC, and the Premiere. Who will stand up and say to Ontario’s residents, “I am responsible for this new Health Care Plan”? We are concerned and confused, that there is no mention of the Canada Health Act in the report. “A health care system that provides appropriate access and achieves equitable outcomes for rural, remote and northern Ontarians” is the vision of the Panel, where is the use of the word public? The Guiding Principles stated in the report, are not reflective of the Canada Health Act. Public Health Care in Canada is meant to provide equity and compassion for all, by removing financial obstacles to health care and has ensured equality and improved quality of life for countless Canadians. When the committee describes the 9 guiding principles it created, there is no mention of the word “public”. I believe these principles should be re-worked to clarify that the health care in Ontario is still a public program, and not in any way to be given to private companies to consult upon, plan or achieve. The Stage One report has made many broad far-reaching recommendations. Premier McGuinty has stated over and over that Ontario’s health care must be sustainable. Sustainability can be translated as centralizations of services in larger centres. The government’s new funding model, i.e. “funding for service” will help bring about this centralization. The problem remains that our health care system is already overburdened. Hospitals in communities of over 30,000 people have longer wait times for Emergency care; they have chronic bed shortages and human health resources problems. This is where the small community hospital is a vital resource of the health care system. These small rural hospitals have the ability and have been trained to stabilize and transport patients to they pace they need t to go, whether that is to a larger hospital or to a tertiary care facility. Small hospitals can admit appropriate patients to in-patient beds or they can accept recovering patients from larger centres to free up much needed beds. They can provide rehabilitative services, and physio therapy services. Continued use of small community hospitals can only help make the Ontario health care system run in a more efficient manner. Patients and their families can remain in a local atmosphere, meaning they feel more comfortable and are apt to recover quicker. Research has been done to prove this very fact. Continued use of local physiotherapy, and laboratory services along with accessible home care will also ensure clients will have their diagnostics completed as well as home care procedures and requirements. Many people who do have the financial or personal resources necessary will not travel travel, for health therapies and diagnostics. In closing, we urge the Panel and the MOHLTC to revise the Stage One report. Small community hospitals are a vital part of Ontario’s health care. The communities who have hospitals want their hospitals to remain as part of the health care available to them. Communities with less then 30,000 residents will be able to attract new businesses and new residents if there is a local hospital. This means more tax dollars for Queen’s park, and a better future for all Ontarians. Respectfully submitted, J. Wesley, Chair, SOS committee JWesley@uniongas.com 519-436-4612 S. Roebuck, member SOS committee. shirl@xcelco.on.ca 519-677-4474 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release by CKHA Friday, March 04, 2011 CKHA Announces Temporary Disruption in Wallaceburg Emergency Department Due to Renovation Wallaceburg -- Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is upgrading the triage area and central nursing station in the Emergency Department at its Sydenham campus in Wallaceburg. Emergency Department patients in Wallaceburg are notified that from Wednesday, March 9th to Monday, March 14th there will be renovation in the emergency department which will temporarily disrupt normal patient flow. Temporary signs and emergency department staff will direct patients appropriately. 24/7 emergency department care continues as usual during the upgrade. According to Clinical Manager, Dorothy Letarte, “This enhancement will upgrade the triage area and the main nursing station with a new, modern look and functionality. The entire team is pleased to see the revitalization of the Emergency Department.” She added that the nursing station cost is $33,000 and supported by the Foundation of CKHA. Media Contact: Dorothy Letarte Clinical Manager, ED Services Chatham-Kent Health Alliance Telephone 519-352-6400 ext 6350 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Conrad's Editorial Comments This upgrading is long overdue and I am surprised of the low cost for the renovations. I am more surprised (if that expression is possible) that the CKHA did not cover the renovations in their regular budget. Hopefully, the CKHA Directors can explain this to the residents serviced by Sydenham Campus as to why it has taken so long to approve the renovations and why does the Foundation have to pay for it. Can anyone provide an answer? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Posted on Feb. 21, 2011 Rural and Northern Health Care Report, Stage One Submission Respectfully submitted to: The Rural and Northern Health Care Committee From: Shirley Roebuck Port Lambton, ON As an Ontario resident, a provider of health care, a recipient of health care, a daughter, whose father receives health care, a community member, I would like to thank the committee for its hard, diligent work, on behalf of our provincial government, and therefore, on behalf of every Ontarian. The committee states that "access to health care in rural, northern and remote areas has long been an issue’. Many factors do influence the availability of health care as the committee states, and I would add the finances of government coffers to that list. The committee notes that government planning for rural and northern health care started in the 1990’s, first with the NDP government, then with the Progressive Conservative government, and then with the Liberal government. I would ask that the committee take note that the framework for equal access is in place, first with the Canada Health Act, and then, with the continued existence of small community hospitals, and the good work they provide. The committee defines its’ vision as "A health care system that provides appropriate access and achieves equitable outcomes for rural, remote and northern Ontarians" This statement is satisfactory, but I would have hoped for more definitive ties to the Canada Health Act. Similarly, the Guiding Principles are not reflective of the Canada Health Act. Public Health Care in Canada arose to ensure equity and compassion for all, by removing financial obstacles to health care. This is still the most popular public program that exists in Canada today; Public Health Care has ensured equality and improved quality of life for endless people across Canada. When the committee describes the 9 guiding principles it created, there is no mention of the word "public". I believe these principles should be re-worked to clarify that the health care in Ontario is still a public program, and not in any way to be given to private companies to achieve. The work that went into the committee’s "Planning Strategies and Decision Guides" is obvious. I believe that more clarity is required to define what a community is and what a local hub is. I have several concerns:
The committee has been specific about principle about governance and accountability. I am glad that they have been so specific. I hope however, that the government does not use any health care dollars, designated for front line health care, to create a new department to manage these principles. The committee’s Health Care System Collaboration statements sound very attractive; there are many hours wasted trying to obtain services, provided locally or not. Once again, I do have concerns:
The committee’s recommendations regarding Local Community Engagement and Planning, and specifically "R9.1. Improve the assessment of community health care access needs at the local level" appears patient friendly. I would ask that the committee take note that small community hospitals provide a necessary and vital service to their community and catchment areas residents. This is the "catch 22" in the government’s plans for health care. As an example, I wish to talk about my local hospital, the Sydenham campus of the Chatham Kent Health Alliance. The Sydenham campus is a small community hospital in Wallaceburg Ontario, some 25 minutes away from the larger Chatham campus. Its catchment area extends into northern Kent County and southern Lambton County, in St. Clair Township. I live in southern Lambton County and drive 50 minutes each day to work in Chatham. The Sydenham campus also services a First Nations Reserve, Walpole Island. This reserve is certainly more than 30 minutes from Chatham. Time from a resident’s home or the location of an accident, is more likely than not to be more than 30 minutes from Chatham; the "Golden Hour" which many physicians report to be the first hour after a trauma or onset of illness will be lost, if there is no Sydenham campus to rely upon. The Chatham Kent Health Alliance with the LHIN’s approval made a decision to close all the in-patient beds at Sydenham campus, except 5; this has resulted in numerous and frequent transports to the Chatham campus or other hospitals when Chatham has no beds. Closing the Wallaceburg ER would mean that residents living outside of Wallaceburg will not have equal access to timely care, and will be at risk for higher mortality rates and poorer prognoses; few if any in-patient beds has already resulted in patients being transported to hospital beds outside their home town. These patients’ families often do not drive, cannot find a way to another centre, and the patient is left alone. I believe that the committee and the provincial government must define what a small community hospital is. In my view, a small community hospital will provide 24/7 Emergency care, to allow all residents of that area the opportunity to receive appropriate health care in a timely manner. Rural Emergency rooms provide stabilization and resuscitation services to those residents who incur a critical injury or illness. The small ER’s give patients the opportunity to reach specialized or tertiary services, and improve their chance at survival, in a timely manner. The small community hospital should also have in-patient beds to facilitate appropriate admissions and to allow those patients returning from larger centers, to recover near their families and home. Research has been done which show increased recovery rates and better outcomes when patients can recover close to home, with the support of their family and friends. This would also allow the freeing up of much needed in- patient beds in larger centre. Basic diagnostic services, ie laboratory and imaging services should be on campus, to assist the health care providers in small centres to do their jobs . In reality, larger centres are ill equipped to take on more workload. The average wait in the Chatham Emergency room is 6 -8-12 hours. This wait is due in part to patient numbers, patient acuity and bed shortages. How is the public (and the rural public) being served by longer wait times, overworked staff, and bed shortages? In short, I would ask that the committee take note that small community hospitals provide a necessary and vital service to their community and catchment areas. They provide stabilization and resuscitation services to those residents who incur a critical injury or illness. The small ER’s give patients an equal opportunity to reach specialized or tertiary services, and improve their chance at survival, which is what this committee has stated, is desirable. I am pleased to see that the Committee has realized that Non-Urgent Transportation for health care purposes is a large problem, creating on-going and chronic issues with patient safety, ambulance off loading and staffing levels. In conclusion I believe that access to health care is imperative to all residents of Ontario, and Canada. The Canada Health Act must remain intact, and its’ principles must continue to drive provincial governments’ actions to provide health care for all. Thank you for your attention.
Shirley Roebuck Posted Feb. 14 Chatham Kent Health Alliance News Release For Immediate Release Wednesday, February 9, 2011 Chatham-Kent Health Alliance Improves Access to Primary Healthcare Chatham-Kent -- Chatham-Kent Health Alliance (CKHA) is improving access to primary healthcare through the ongoing operation and expansion of a Nurse Practitioner (NP) Clinic located at its Sydenham campus in Wallaceburg. The Nurse Practitioner Clinic is staffed Monday through Friday by three NPs (1 full-time and 2 part-time), namely Lori Dalton, Delynne Teetzel and Corinne Pollard. The work at the NP Clinic is also supported by a full-time clerical person who organizes appointments and assists with communication with patients and staff. Located on the 2nd floor, the NP Clinic started at Sydenham campus in 2009 when the NPs recognized a high need for those with newly diagnosed blood pressure problems. At that time, the initial patient intake also focused on improving access to care for CKHA staff and their families without a family doctor or family nurse practitioner. Registered patients are seen weekdays by appointment. Registered patients with more urgent needs can request a same day appointment. Eighty such same-day appointment requests were accommodated last month. This means that 80 patients were able to see their own or one of the other Clinic NPs in January, rather than having to turn to the Emergency Department for care, thereby reducing ED wait time and improving patient satisfaction. Since the NP Clinic opening in 2009, over 1100 patients who have no primary healthcare provider have registered for ongoing care. There were over 3100 visits to Wallaceburg’s NP Clinic last year, and it is now poised for expansion. The next phase of intake is about to begin. According to Willi Kirenko, Nurse Practitioner Coordinator, “With our aging population, many more seniors require frequent visits for ongoing care of sometimes more complex health conditions. Plans are underway to analyze a list of seniors who have visited the Emergency Department more than once in the past year. A list of those seniors who are currently without a primary healthcare provider will be contacted and offered the opportunity to register with the NP Clinic. We anticipate that approximately 300 more patients could be added to the NP Clinic through this process.” She states that only patients without a family doctor or family nurse practitioner are eligible to register. The NPs provide a full range of health services from pre-natal and well baby care, to regular health assessments for children and adults, as well as support for patients with a variety of chronic health problems including diabetes, emphysema and heart problems. Registered patients benefit from the support of Diabetes Education, Mental Health professionals and Dietitians, to name a few. Two local physicians, Dr Robert Mayo and Dr. Pierre Letarte provide collaboration services. Relationships have also been formed with many community partners including local pharmacies, private laboratories, and the Community Care Access Centre. Crystal Houze, Vice-President/Chief Nursing Executive adds, ”The operation and expansion of the NP Clinic in Wallaceburg is a clear sign that CKHA values this service in our community. CKHA’s Nurse Practitioners and the patient support team are truly ’caring people, caring for people’. Media Contact Willi Kirenko Nurse Practitioner Coordinator (519) 352-6401 Ext. 6049 _________________________________________________________________________________ Posted Feb. 11 Chatham-Kent CHC,s are expanding services across Wallaceburg and Walpole. We are very pleased to have recently attracted both a dietician and addictions worker. These new staff members will join the 6 nurse practitioners and 4 physicians,along with numerous other health professionals such as social workers, occupational therapists, health promoters and nurses. The CHC's received approval from the LHIN today to expand and create a larger satellite on Walpole Island. We continue to accept clients into the community health centres expanding access to care. Applications are available both on-line and can be picked up at the centres as well. Please visit our website at www.ckchc.ca to learn more about the programs and services offered through the centres. Please contact us if your agency or service group are interested in learning more. These Centres belong to the community. On another note we are very proud to share that the CKCHC's in partnership with Walpole Island residents have been selected to present at an International Conference in Toronto this year. The presentation has a focus of cultural sensitivity. We are now beginning to offer many programs and will be relying on volunteers to assist in the delivery of such. Kristen Williams Executive Director Chatham Kent Community Health Centres 150 Richmond St., Chatham, ON N7M 1N9 Kristen.Williams@ckchc.ca www.ckchc.ca Tel 519.397.5455 Fax 519.397.5497 Cell 519.437.8560 "The best possible health for those we serve" _________________________________________________________________________________ Feb. 9 From: Shirley, SOS member The link below will show you that the government has re-scheduled the consultation meeting regarding the Rural and Northern Health Care Report. Please try to attend, so you can voice you concerns about our local healthcare. There is a link to register on-line, but I am told that no one will be turned away.
There is also a link to the report's Executive summary, which contains the guidelines and principles that the committee has adopted, as the priorities for rural and northern healthcare. Wallaceburg would not be deemed rural under this document, and we must tell the committee we want local healthcare, Emergency services and our hospital. Thanks, Shirley http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/public/programs/ruralnorthern/consultations.aspxPetrolia meeting date: Friday, Feb. 18th from 1:00 - 3:30 @ Oil Heritage District Community Centre (gymnasium), 360 Tank Street, Petrolia. Please register, using link above, by Feb. 16th. Format: Group discussions on a specific set of questions. Tables of 8-10 people who will be provided a short outline on the panel's report. Specific groups will report to the assembly. CONTACTS: Neala Barton, Minister’s Office, 416-327-4388 Andrew Morrison, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, 416-314-6197 ontario.ca/health-news ________________________________________________________________________________________________________Posted Jan. 30 A reminder that the Rural and Northern Health Care Committee will hold a public hearing in Petrolia on Wednesday, Feb. 2 from 1:00-3:30 at Lambton Central Collegiate & Vocational Institute, Gymnasium 4141 Dufferin Avenue BUT we all need to put pressure on Maria Van Bommel and Pat Hoy in order to have a hearing in Wallaceburg.SOS encourages you to attend the Petrolia meeting and to email Maria and Pat stating our upset that Wallaceburg has not been selected. One public hearing in each LHIN is not acceptable. What are they afraid of? Maria's email: mvanbommel.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org (Constituency Office) ; mvanbommel.mpp@liberal.ola.org (Queen's Park) Pat Hoy's email: phoy.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org (Constituency Office) ; mphoy.mpp@liberal.ola.org (Queen's Park) Thanks Conrad Noel, Vice chair SOS ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Posted Jan. 21 Please forward this information widely.To: OHC Members and Contacts From: Natalie Mehra, Director, Ontario Health Coalition Please note that the government has scheduled the first 5 of 14 public hearings on its rural and northern health care report. The first public hearing is on Monday. This is the report that comes out of the panel. It is the one we have been awaiting for a year. Now that they have released the report, they are moving very very fast. There is very little notice for the hearings they are holding. Nonetheless, in my conversations with the Minister's office, the hearings sound legitimate, though the lack of notice is disturbing. I have pasted the dates and times below. In addition, I have pasted a very quick summary of the report below. I will be sending out something more thorough soon. We are strongly encouraging widespread participation. Please raise with the government the same issues you raised with our panel that traveled across Ontario last spring, and any new issues you have. THIS IS THE LIST OF THE FIRST 5 MINISTRY OF HEALTH'S ROUND TABLE CONSULTATIONS ON ITS RURAL AND NORTHERN HEALTH CARE FRAMEWORK: For the government's report etc. please go to: http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/public/programs/ruralnorthern/consultations.aspx Register by (Jan. 31) Petrolia 2-Feb-11 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Lambton Central Collegiate & Vocational Institute, Gymnasium 4141 Dufferin Avenue You can register by calling 1-800-503-8654 or online: www.health.gov/on.ca/en/public/programs/ruralnorthern/register.aspx _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Posted Jan. 21 Just how 'open' is this open mic night? Opinion/Editorial By BRUCE CORCORAN Well, at least it's a step in the right direction, but talk about baby steps. The Erie-St. Clair Local Health Integration Network has decided to give the public a chance to speak up at future LHIN board meetings and will move the open portion of its meetings to 5:30 p.m. to better accommodate the public. That shift in timing is a good move that will make it easier for the working public to attend. Granting the floor to the public is also a good decision. Call it an open mic night, of sorts. The problem is it's not that open. There will be a limit of three members of the public accessing the microphone per meeting, with five minutes granted per speaker. Anyone who wishes to speak must be on hand to register 45 minutes before the meeting is slated to begin. So if you want to be heard, be early and hope not many others want to speak to health-care issues affecting Windsor-Essex, Chatham-Kent and Sarnia-Lambton. After all, considering we are one of the most underserviced areas in the province in terms of physicians, still have the possible closure of rural emergency rooms looming, have an aging obese population and a host of other health and health-care related issues, why would anyone want to address the body that determines how health-care dollars are doled out in our region? If you want to do more than just spend five minutes in front of the microphone, you can apply to make a presentation to the LHIN during its education portion of the meeting. But you'll have to register online and hope a LHIN staffer likes what you have to say, as topics and presenters are chosen monthly by a LHIN employee. All in all, the effort is positive, but the limitations and selectivity make it too controlled. It may appear to be an open microphone, but to some, that mic may ultimately be way beyond their grasp. Article ID# 2939520 _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Jan. 18 Have your say at LHIN meetings By Daily News Staff The Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network is giving residents a voice at its board meetings. A new format will be introduced at the LHIN's board meeting Tuesday in Chatham where community members will have access to an open mic. Residents can also apply to make a presentation during the open education session of future board meetings. According to an ESC LHIN press release, public and and health care stakeholders who want to talk at the open mic will have five minutes to speak on a topic, raise an issue or ask questions of the board. This will be followed by five minutes of discussion or questions from LHIN board members. Board meetings will be limited to three open mic presenters, who must register in person 45 minutes prior to the start of the meeting. An online application form is available at www.eriestclairlhin.on.ca for those interested in applying to make a presentation at the LHIN board's open education session. Education topics and presenters will be chosen monthly by a LHIN staff/board committee. In order to give working residents more opportunity to participate in meetings, the LHIN is moving the start time of the open portion of its meetings to 5:30 p.m. The meetings are held at the Erie St. Clair LHIN office at 180 Riverview Dr. in Chatham. "As a board we recognized that we needed to hear more from the community and local health-service stakeholders at our open board meetings," said Mina Grossman-Ianni, chair of the ESC LHIN board directors, in a written release. "It's important to us that we are connected with the community and hearing their insights, their concerns or other thoughts they wish to share," she added. Grossman-Ianni said she is looking forward to seeing "new faces" at the upcoming board meeting. Article ID# 2935031 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Editorial Comments: We're always happy when there is more openness and opportunities to express points of view to the board. Also like that time of meeting have been changed. More people can now attend without having to taking time off of work. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Jan. 15 Sydenham campus renovations continueBy Daily News Staff WALLACEBURG — Renovations to Sydenham Campus of Chatham-Kent Health Alliance continue. The final stage of the five-year roofing project was completed in the fall and a new replacement boiler is being installed this month. The cost for the boiler is estimated at $146,000, hospital officials said. The work is part of the CKHA's !magine Program, which sees the organization making investments to preserve the aging facility. "Our !magine committee continues its planning towards new and improved facilities in Wallaceburg and in Chatham," said Colin Patey, CKHA's president and CEO, in a news release. "In the meantime, infrastructure improvements such as these translate to improved efficiency, and patient and staff comfort, safety and satisfaction. By undertaking general structural improvements and creating a more efficient workspace for staff, Sydenham campus can respond to the current healthcare needs of the community." Officials said upgrades to the electrical control panels inside the elevator cabs is completed, and the interiors of both elevator cabs have been refurbished with new lighting, flooring, ceilings and walls at a cost of $52,000. A request for proposal has been issued for further upgrading of the elevators. Hospital administration has endorsed $500,000 towards a complete electrical upgrade and preliminary discussions have started. Officials said work on the waste water system will begin in spring 2011 at a cost of approximately $100,000. A new nurse's station will soon be put into the emergency department at a cost of $33,000 for which the Foundation of CKHA provided $31,100. CKHA's energy savings partnership with Honeywell continues and $600,000 is being invested at the Sydenham campus to reduce energy consumption and maximize energy savings. Article ID# 2931786 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Conrad's Editorial Comments: What a difference our new CEO, Colin Patey has made towards Sydenham Hospital. Everyone appreciates Colin's efforts to preserve our local hospital. Posted Jan. 15
Liberals scramble to fix their messEditorial By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD
Then it attempts to put them back together with a report one critic described as "gobbledegook." Nickel Belt New Democrat France Gelinas says it's impossible to make sense of it. "It's high level gobbledegook that makes no sense," she said. Instead of looking at how to provide access to services in rural and remote parts of the province, she said it simply provides a strategic plan. The folks she represents are realistic about health-care delivery. "People who live in remote and rural Ontario, we don't want equal access," Gelinas said. "We know there will never be a hospital in Foleyet, Gogama or Westree. "We want equitable access. We want the same thing everyone else gets. We want it through a model that makes sense in rural and remote Ontario," she said. Gelinas says northern and rural patients simply want to know they'll have an access point in their community. Attracting and keeping doctors is always a problem, she said. It's unwise to make access to health care dependent on physicians. "Put a model in place that is not dependent on changing physicians. The family health team model makes no sense because it is physician driven, so when the physician leaves, so does the service." Community health centres and nursing stations work better in rural communities, she said. Gelinas said the consultations aren't being held in enough communities. They are set for New Liskeard, Burford, Hanover, Drayton, Shelburne, Petrolia, Renfrew, Picton, Haliburton, Orillia and Dryden. While residents can also make submissions online, there are no town hall meetings set for the Niagara Peninsula, which has seen its health services gutted. Guelph MPP Liz Sandals will lead the consultations for the government with Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock MPP Rick Johnson. She said she doesn't want to talk about governance issues, she wants to talk about human resources. She admits the report is vague. "It is fair to say that the recommendations aren't extremely explicit," so she wants to talk about human resources. "We know that there isn't going to be a heart surgeon in every rural community, but if you need a heart surgeon, how do you get connected to one if you live in a rural community?" she said. If you have to meet with a heart surgeon out of town and you're a 75-year-old widow, how do you get there, she asks? The government gutted rural health services, and now it's trying to fix the crisis they created, says Natalie Mehra, director of the Ontario Health Coalition. "There hasn't been any planning for rural people and access to health care and now the government is trying to figure out how to fix it. "They're stuck because all their health care planning is directed towards centralizing services," she said. While she said some of the proposals are good, she calls the recommendation that Ontarians be within one hour of in-patient hospital services "dangerous," and it would result in a significant number of hospital closures in southwestern and central parts of the province. The best plan? Get out to the meetings or make your views known online. If the government doesn't listen in an election year, then all the king's horses won't save them at the ballot box. christina.blizzard@sunmedia.ca Article ID# 2931332 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Why do we always have to fight for what should be apparent to all?
The experience of Sydenham District Hospital (SDH) supporters has been that whenever the government or the LHIN has promised us consultation it has always been one sided and ineffective (ex: the clicker event). This time around is no different. 1. We had asked the government to hold consultation meetings PRIOR to writing the Rural and Northern Health Care Report - they chose instead to write the report first and ask for comments after. 2. After all that SDH and the local communities have been through the government did not even have the respect or concern for our community to hold a consultation meeting in Wallaceburg. What are they afraid of - honest straight forward input? 3. I went to the web site to register for a session...any session close by...and the dates and location locally are not even up. The ones that are have a very short response time - so how will we know when the other dates and locations are put up? Luck? I challenge both local MPPs - Maria Van Bommel and Pat Hoy to have a consultation meeting in Wallaceburg. We have earned the right to have our say. If not then tell us why not. Jeff Wesley
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Conrad's Editorial Comments: We need to take action and demand a consultation meeting in Wallaceburg. We deserve the right to have our say. If you are interested in joining the SOS Bombardment Team , email me and I will send you the details.
Email: conrad@saveoursydenham.com or conradn@mnsi.net. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Posted Jan. 11Minister ‘absolutely committed’ to Petrolia ER By TYLER KULA, THE OBSERVER Arlene Patterson says she's not convinced Ontario has CEE Hospital in Petrolia's best interests at heart. She and a contingent from the Sarnia-Lambton Health Coalition staged a small demonstration outside the Rapids Family Health Team office in Sarnia on Monday during a visit by Deb Matthews, Ontario's Health and Long Term Care Minister. Holding a sign that read, "Commit to keeping C.E.E. emerge open," Patterson spoke to Matthews for about five minutes and asked her to publicly commit to keeping Petrolia's emergency department open 24/7. The ER is currently surviving month to month, with local and provincial doctors helping alleviate a chronic doctor shortage. "We've been working really closely with Petrolia through HealthForceOntario, which brings in emergency physicians when they are needed, when there isn't a local supply," Matthews said. "But we are absolutely committed to keeping it open. How exactly we're doing that is something we're working on right now." Patterson wasn't satisfied with the response. "We've heard this before, that everything is under study, it's under review, it's in progress, it's this and that," she said. "That's why we came today seeking an answer to our question, is she prepared to make a commitment? I didn't hear that from her today." Matthews met with a reference panel established by the Erie-St. Clair LHIN (Local Health Integration Network) to study the issue and come up with solutions, and said she was impressed. "We know that is a very important hospital and having 24-hour, seven-day-a-week emergency care there is very important to the people of the community," she said. Patterson was still skeptical. "We know that this government is wanting to downsize small and rural hospitals," she said. "They've done it and they will continue to do it." tkula@theobserver.ca Article ID# 2923167 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Conrad's Editorial Comments: I totally agree with Arlene Patterson. Let's honestly ask ourselves "What firm commitment did the Minster make?" ??????NONE To our Save Our Sydenham website readers: This is an election year and we need to hear firm commitments and firm alternatives from ALL political parties. Downsizing has been the mandate of the Liberal party with the LHIN's as their hatchers. We will hear a lot of promises which of course will probably never see light. I hope that I am wrong. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Treat ailing elderly as patients not ‘bed blockers’ Published On Fri, 07 Jan 2011 Toronto Star Michael Hurley , President of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions
Four years ago, my mom — blind, sick from heart disease, but fiercely independent — fell in her apartment. My sister found her unconscious two days later. She spent three weeks in hospital. Her final days of life were spent as a "bed blocker." This came with a spate of indignities. Fluids weren’t pushed, vital signs weren’t taken. Blood work wasn’t done. She wasn’t toileted and became incontinent — a complete humiliation for her. She deteriorated rapidly, but there was a steady push on our family to send her home or to a nursing home. Even though my sister — a nurse — advocated daily on her behalf, she was neglected in our health-care system. When she slipped out of lucidity and out of consciousness, tests were done and we were called to see a cardiac surgeon. He told us that my mother had had two undiagnosed heart attacks while in hospital and now was too weak for surgery. He was very kind and apologetic. She was dead within 36 hours.Like my mother, many elderly patients are acutely ill. But the general assumption is that they are wasting precious health-care resources. Since these patients are often long-lived, and since few families complain in the fog of their grief, the active discrimination against this age cohort passes unnoticed. Ontario’s hospitals are operating over their capacity. Nineteen thousand beds have been closed over the last 15 years. In Sudbury, patients sleep in broom closets. Ours is the most efficient hospital system in Canada — operating with $260 fewer dollars per citizen, with the shortest lengths of stay and the fewest beds and staff per capita of any province.Successive governments in Ontario haven’t had the courage to take on the doctors or the drug companies or the private care corporations, which are driving up health-care spending. So most of the efficiencies have been made in the already efficient hospital sector, where a permanent revolution has been in effect for 20 years, with ongoing restructuring, downsizing and privatization. Now, war has been declared on the "bed blockers" so that another 5,000 beds can be closed.But the real problem is that too many hospital beds have been closed. There aren’t enough beds for all of the acutely ill people who need them.At 90 years old, with congestive heart failure, diabetes and arteriosclerosis, Alice MacPherson was given two months to live by her doctors. She needed palliative care so that she could die as peacefully as modern medicine will allow. A Windsor hospital threatened to bill her $600 a day — they needed her bed and they wanted her out. There is no compassion and there is no empathy. The fact that MacPherson was dying didn’t matter to the hospital or appear to matter to the Ministry of Health. What mattered was getting her out of hospital and into a nursing home or retirement home where, guaranteed, there is less care than needed in her last days. MacPherson belonged in hospital. So did my mother.For those patients who are pushed out, they are sent home where home care is increasingly difficult to get and where caregivers turn over at the rate of 57 per cent a year. The government’s "Aging at Home" strategy might as well be the "Aging Alone" strategy. In a cruel twist, hospital patients are now being sent to retirement homes. The Toronto Star did a great service with its investigation into the deaths of two residents at a retirement home in Toronto. Retirement homes are not regulated and they are run for profit. A meta-analysis of death rates in public and for-profit hospitals and dialysis clinics by Drs. P.J. Devereaux and Gordon Guyatt, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found higher death rates in for-profit facilities because the owners skimped on regulated staff and/or on supplies like blood-cleaning products. Danny Henderson, unable to feed himself, should never have been sent to a facility as understaffed as the retirement home he was discharged to. This "bed blocker" died of severe malnutrition, according to the coroner who did his autopsy. The retirement home that Henderson was discharged to had no toilet paper. Residents used their hands to wipe themselves and shared a communal towel. The posted menus bore no resemblance to the meals served.And yet the Ministry of Health continues to force the discharge of hospital patients to retirement homes and pretends that this case is an anomaly.Two years before Mr. Henderson’s death, another "bed blocker," discharged from an Ottawa hospital to a retirement home, was found frozen to death in a field near the facility. No one noticed she had wandered off. Families whose moms and dads are being pushed out of hospitals when they are too sick to leave should call out publicly for help, as Macpherson’s son has done. Physicians have a responsibility to reassess their role in discharging acutely ill patients. Hospital staff, too, must step up and defend the generation that fought World War II and built medicare. They deserve our best efforts to make them well.If that’s not possible, they deserve a kind and gentle, attentive and loving end of life. They don’t deserve the dehumanization foisted on them by governments’ health policy choices that underlie the "bed blocker" label.ONLINE COMMENT: The Fraser Institute recently suggested a five-year moratorium on the Canada Health Act so that experiments in the private delivery of health services could be carried out. Sharon Sholzberg-Gray thinks that’s a bad idea. See thestar.com today for her commentary.________________________________________________________________________________________________________
On behalf of your SOS executive (Jeff, Conrad, Jim, Shirley, Herb & Bill) we wish to thank everyone for your support during 2010. Let us assure you that your SOS executive has the pulse on what is happening with our Sydenham Hospital, CKHA, ESLHIN and the Provincial Government.
The Rural and Northern Health Care Report has been released. SOS will be counting on your support as we approach the 2011 Provincial Elections.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Posted Dec. 14
|
| A germ outbreak at Peterborough Regional Health Centre has caused the hospital to restrict visitors in one of its main medical units, hospital officials announced on Friday. |
|
An unusually large number of cases of patients with three different germs have been found in one of the hospital's main medical units, where there are 36 patients, said Dr. John Vlasschaert, the head of the hospital's physicians' committee on infection control. |
Vlasschaert called it a coincidence and an anomaly that clostridium difficile (C. difficile), methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin resistant enterococci (VRE) have been found in a large number of patients in the same hospital unit.
"It's not usual that you would see the three organisms coming together like that, but they're all transmitted in the same way," he said.
Starting on Friday, the hospital began restricting visiting to patients in the B3 medical unit to two immediate family members at a time.
Patients with one of the three germs have been put in isolation with one patient per room, Vlasschaert said.
"Anyone entering or leaving the room has to put on personal protective garments... gowns, gloves to make sure that they are not going to bring infection in or take infection out," he said.
There have been seven cases linked to the C. difficile outbreak that the hospital declared on Oct. 22. No new cases have been identified over the past 10 years and the hospital will consider declaring the outbreak over next week.
The hospital declared the MRSA outbreak on Nov. 5. There have been 11 cases linked to the outbreak. If no new cases are identified when screening is done on Nov. 15, the hospital will declare the outbreak over.
The hospital is now investigating two cases of VRE. All the patients in the unit will be tested for the third organism on Monday.
The hospital is still open for business, Peterborough Regional Health Centre president and CEO Ken Tremblay said, stressing that the restrictions are isolated to the B3 medical unit.
"We're taking this seriously. Clearly infection control is a paramount concern to hospitals," he said. "We're trying to get to the bottom of how this outbreak can be contained... We are investigating the source of these things."
Tremblay added that the outbreak isn't connected to recent staffing cuts at the hospital that are a part of its plan to balance its budget.
"No, this is a discreet activity that is independent of that. While there was a retirement in this area back in July, the staffing and the protocols and all of the things that are in place remain constant," he said.
The hospital is investigating the outbreak, Vlasschaert said.
"It can come from the community. These germs are becoming more prevalent in the community all the time. It can start in the hospital and some of these infections undoubtedly did start in the hospital," he said.
The hospital is looking at hand hygiene measures, environmental cleaning and isolation practices, infection prevention and control and environmental services manager Margaret Jay said.
bwedley@peterboroughexaminer.com
Article ID# 2844877
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Lowther appointed to LHIN board
Chatham This Week News
| The provincial public appointments secretariat has appointed Mike Lowther to the Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) board of directors. |
Currently, Lowther is the controller/CFO of Waddick Fuels. He is a certified management accountant and a member of The Society of Management Accountants of Ontario.
A long-time resident of Chatham, Lowther is very active in the community, having served as a member of the board of directors of Junior Achievement of Chatham, Kiwanis Club of Chatham, Chatham Girls Minor Softball Association, Chatham-Kent Crime Stoppers and the Maple City Country Club. He was also a member of the School Council for Chatham-Kent Secondary School.
LHIN board members are selected using a merit-based process, with all candidates assessed for the fit between skills and abilities of the prospective appointee and the needs of each LHIN board. Directors are expected to possess relevant expertise, experience, leadership skills and have an understanding of local health issues, needs and priorities.
The Erie St. Clair LHIN and its board are responsible for over $1 billion of health care services delivered in Chatham-Kent, Sarnia/Lambton and Windsor/Essex.
"I am honoured to have been appointed to the ESC LHIN board," said Lowther in a news release. "I am a local person who lives and works in Chatham-Kent and I care about the health care my family and our local residents receive."
Article ID# 2829124
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Courier Press: Oct. 21 Edition Picture on page 15
CLV matches $194.00 dollars that SOS collected at their summer BBQ. In the photo, CLV donates an extra $1000.00 to the SOS funds. CLV is a local business which owns five apartment buildings in Wallaceburg and two in Dresden.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
October 28th
Letter to the editor as published in today’s Chatham Daily News (http://www.ChathamDailyNews.ca/).
HEALTH-CARE BUREAUCRACY FLAWED, BLOATED
Sir: To quote Mr. Gary Switzer, CEO of the Erie-St. Clair LHIN, from the recent article, "Contract decision defended," in the Oct. 21 Chatham Daily News, "At no time was there any recommendation or plan to close an ED (Emergency Department)."
To quote Section 5.9 of the Hay Report -Summary and Directions for Change:
There are two alternatives that may be considered for the Wallaceburg community:
"Closure of the ED and redirection of all patients to Chatham...
"Consideration should be given to the creation of a comprehensive primary care facility in Wallaceburg..."
The Hay report continued with direction for change that included, and I once again quote:
"The Emergency Department at Wallaceburg should cease to operate as a full service ED.
"Prior to the closure, the CKHA should develop a comprehensive plan to ensure a viable Emergency Department at the Chatham site which will provide services to residents of Wallaceburg and Walpole Island."
When sole-source contracts are awarded by a Liberal appointed CEO, to well-connected Liberal consultants for the purposes spinning a flawed Liberal message, then something has gone awry. When a small hospital is expected to act as an ATM for this transaction, then an entire community is insulted.
The premier should immediately review the priorities and poor decisions of this bloated health-care bureaucracy.
Jim Hasson Wallaceburg
Article ID# 2820210 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________
October 27th
Letters to the Editor
CONSULTANT PROVIDED LHIN WITH ADVICE TO BETTER COMMUNICATE WITH THE PUBLIC
Sir: Re: "Something taints the air in Erie St. Clair," Oct. 22 point of view in The Chatham Daily News.
In response to the point of view, it is important that we clearly communicate to your readers the purpose of Laurie Lashbrook's work with our LHIN related to the Small Emergency Department Study.
Ms. Lashbrook was not hired to communicate the Hay Group findings. The services she provided supported our own LHIN review that followed the Hay Group report.
The result of this work was to not accept the findings of the Hay Report, but instead focus in a different direction, improving access to primary health care across our LHIN region.
Further, Laurie provided advice and learnings that we still draw upon today, on how to communicate and engage with our community more effectively. This was a concern voiced to us by the community throughout the Small Emergency Department study, and we took this concern very seriously.
The role of consultants is to bring their expertise and outside perspective to organizations in order to meet a short-term need of a project or just make them better. We are striving to be a better organization, and experts like Laurie help us to do that.
Gary Switzer CEO, Erie-St. Clair LHIN _______________________________________________________________________________________________
The Welland Tribune
Fri Oct 29 2010
Byline: ALLAN BENNER , TRIBUNE STAFF
Dateline: WELLAND
A Toronto lawyer says there may be grounds for a Welland lawsuit against the Local Health Integration Network and the provincial government.
Last week, Welland city council passed a resolution instructing staff to get legal opinion about the potential for legal action against the LHIN and province in an effort to stop the implementation of changes to the delivery of local hospital services.
Port Colborne city council passed a similar resolution in August.
Toronto lawyer Eric Gillespie said the rules of the Law Society of Upper Canada prevent him from publicly discussing clients or even potential clients. But generally speaking, the lawyer who recently led a successful class-action lawsuit against Vale (Inco) said the legal action the cities are considering has potential.
"We are familiar with the issue, and generally we believe that there may be grounds for some type of legal challenge to these kinds of decisions," he said, adding his law firm has already been contacted by groups from other communities regarding potential legal action to preserve health-care services.
Such a legal challenge, he said, could also mean at least a temporary end to the implementation of further changes to the delivery of hospital services, pending the outcome of litigation.
"That would be within the kind of relief that could be requested," Gillespie told The Tribune.
Ward 2 Coun. Frank Campion, chair of Welland's health-care committee, said Gillespie's comment was the type of information he was hoping to hear. He said the city is contacting another Toronto law firm, and he's anticipating receiving a report by next week.
From there, Campion said if the city gets "an affirmative response, which it sounds like we might, then we take it to the next step.... We'll get the ball rolling."
Because of city council's lame duck status, a final decision would have to be made by the new city council after its sworn in in December.
Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey said his city's efforts to take legal action to preserve hospital services began long before its council resolution was passed Aug. 23.
He said Port Colborne has been working on potential litigation for more than a year, although the interest in seeking legal recourse was elevated in south Niagara as a result of Ontario's ombudsman report on a lack of public consultation that led the LHIN to approve Niagara Health System's hospital improvement plan.
Badawey said he was happy to see that Welland has "finally" followed suit.
He said the growing interest is a recognition of the "negative impact" hospital changes are having regionwide.
Because Port Colborne and Welland are both working on the same strategy, Campion said he hopes the neighbouring cities can team up, along with any other community with same concerns.
"My entire plan is to find out if we have legal grounds and once we know that I would contact all the municipalities in Niagara, and particularly the southern tier ones. ... We might as well put our resources together and our knowledge together," Campion said.
"There's no point in launching six or seven lawsuits against somebody, let's get together and do it right and share the costs."
He said he'd like to reach out to communities across the province, particularly in rural areas, to see if they'd like to get involved, too.
"I believe this is a province-wide issue, not just a Niagara issue. Based on that, there may be more participation."
And if enough municipalities get involved, it might get the attention of the provincial government, he added.
Badawey would support working with Welland and other communities. He said Port Colborne formed Niagara South Health Care Cor to help neighbouring communities work together on common goals.
He called this case a fight he's prepared to lead.
But Badawey said he's also still willing to work with the health system, LHIN and province to develop a hospital improvement plan that will work -- but to accomplish that, he said the organizations need to "hear the displeasure, anger and frustration of the service providers."
abenner@wellandtribune.ca
By BRUCE CORCORAN Chatham Daily News
The local LHIN looks a little worse for the wear after the provincial Conservatives dumped a used bedpan on its head this week.
What's worse, the excrement can all be tracked back to the Erie-St. Clair Local Health Integration Network.
The Conservatives, led by Sarnia-Lambton MPP Bob Bailey and health critic Christine Elliott, accused local health-care overseers of sole-sourcing a consultant's contract, a procedure the premier has banned.
Furthermore, it was a $30,000 contract to spin the convoluted results of the Hay Report -which recommended the closure of small-town emergency rooms in Wallaceburg and Petrolia -into something the general public could understand.
To top if off, the gold-plated deal went to a consultant who is literally in bed with the Liberals -well, one at least.
The LHIN had its faulty $87,000 Hay Group report, which couldn't even accurately gauge the travel time and patient numbers.
Rather than revisit the flaws, which might have led to a change in mindset over ER closures, the LHIN opted to hire another consultant to help spin and deliver the Hay message.
And instead of going through an RFP process, the LHIN hand picked a London-area consultant, Laurie Lashbrook, who happens to be the wife of London West federal Liberal candidate and former president of the Liberal Party of Canada Doug Ferguson.
Talk about the perfect political storm: A Liberal created body chooses a consultant with blatant Liberal ties without sending the task to tender, even though the Liberal premier says sole sourcing is no longer tolerated. Ooops.
Forgive us if no one in Chatham-Kent is laughing. To top it off, this is a glaring sign of how bureaucracy is running the show and bogging us down with consultant overload -a consultant is hired to help communicate a flawed report from another consultant.
But the finger-pointing Conservatives aren't perfect in their efforts here. They didn't exactly get their facts too straight when opening fire. First, Elliott came out in Question Period at Queen's Park on Tuesday saying the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance doled out the sole-sourced gravy deal to Lashbrook, when it was the LHIN's call to gift-wrap it to her. It turns out the CKHA had to write the cheque under LHIN orders.
Still, the consulting facts speak for themselves. This was another LHIN fiasco; another $30,000 in taxpayer funds squandered.
About the only consultant blunder the LHIN can't take credit for is the Veritas debacle of last year. For anyone who forgot, the CKHA hired Veritas to develop a community engagement plan and speak to community leaders. One of its employees instead attempted to dig up dirt on SOS chairman Jeff Wesley.
But then again, the LHIN can't be perfect at imperfection, can it?
Article ID# 2811354
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Conrad's Editorial
CKHA says consultant practices are ‘sound’
Local News
| ELLWOOD SHREVE |
The Daily News
The Chatham-Kent Health Alliance says many of its processes were found to be sound during a random spot audit that is part of a special report by Ontario's Auditor General focusing on questionable practices used in hiring consultants.
Jim McCarter tabled the report in the Legislative Assembly Wednesday outlining many examples of poor business practices being employed by Ontario's health-care sector — based on audits of three Local Health Integration Networks and 16 hospitals — to hire and manage the use of consultants, resulting in several instances where costs ballooned.
Colin Patey, CKHA president and CEO, said in a written statement, "we welcome the report and we take its findings and recommendations seriously."
He said the CKHA co-operated fully with the auditor during on-site visits.
"While many of our processes were found to be sound, we acknowledge that there is always room for improvement," Patey said.
McCarter's look at hospitals found consultants were often selected without competition and without a clear, written-out agreement setting out exactly what they were supposed to do.
The report, which didn't specifically name any health organization, also discovered consultant contracts were often extended without tender and costs were allowed to snowball from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars above the original price. There were also numerous examples of consultants hired on a sole-source basis.
According to the report, one hospital paid a consultant $170,000 in expenses between 2007 and 2009. When auditors inquired about these expenses, the hospital asked the consultant to provide receipts to support the expense charges but was told it would have to pay a $3,000 service fee. The hospital refused and the consultant didn't provide the requested information.
Eight of the 16 hospitals hired consultants to lobby governments for more funding, according to the report.
McCarter noted, in a press release, that although the amounts were relatively small, this was a "questionable use of funds provided to hospitals for clinical and administrative activities."
The Ontario government announced Wednesday strict new rules preventing organizations funded with taxpayer dollars from using public funds to hire lobbyists to ask for more funding, according a press release issued by Chatham-Kent Essex MPP Pat Hoy.
"The examples the auditor found are unacceptable, which is why we are implementing all his recommendations and going even further," Hoy said.
The government has introduced the Broader Public Sector Accountabilty Act that, if passed, would bring in new rules and higher accountability standards for hospitals, LHINs and the broader public sector around the use of external lobbyists, consultants and expenses, Hoy said.
Wayne Schnabel, chairman of the executive committee of CKHA's Tri-Board of directors, said in written release, the board supports the government's ban on the use of consultant lobbyists.
"And for the record, CKHA does not use the services of a consultant lobbyist," Schnabel said. "We believe that discussions about our hospital's needs with government are best done directly by our tri-board and administration."
Progressive Conservative MPP Bob Bailey, for Sarnia-Lambton, issued a press release Tuesday critical of the Erie-St. Clair LHIN authorizing the hiring of a consultant on a sole-source basis.
With respect to the Auditor General's report, he questioned what the ministers of these various ministries were thinking when "fellas in fancy suits and shiny brief cases" showed up at their offices asking for more money.
Bailey said people have been waiting for cancer treatments and surgeries and told there is no dollars to run operating rooms while millions of dollars were being squandered on consultants.
"It was like an orgy of spending while people are waiting for health procedures," he said.
The Ontario Auditor General's 32-page report can be viewed online at www.auditor.on.ca/en/default.htm.
Article ID# 2809047
LHIN awarded sole-sourced contract
"At no time was there any recommendation or plan to close an ED (emergency department)," Gary Switzer said.
The LHIN called on consultant Laurie Lashbrook to assist in developing community engagement and communication strategies to discuss the findings in the 2009 Hay Group report on three area rural hospitals, Switzer said.
The report called for replacing the emergency departments in Petrolia and Wallaceburg with comprehensive primary care facilities that would no longer operate 24- hours a day.
On Tuesday, Ontario Progressive Conservative health critic Christine Elliott accused the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance of breaking the Ontario Liberal government's rule of giving out sole-sourced contracts by hiring Lashbrook, who is married to a federal Liberal candidate from London, without tendering for the job.
On Wednesday, Switzer said it was the LHIN that hired Lashbrook & Associates. However, under the procurement rules, the LHIN is allowed to sole-source contracts for specific reasons, he said.
"We were hearing from our community that we weren't doing a good enough job (communicating the Hay Report finds), so we thought, 'Let's reach out and hire a local expert.' "
Asked about the PC party raising the issue, Switzer said, "I don't know what point they're trying to make to be honest.
He said the LHIN received sound advice from Lashbrook that it used for communicating with the public.
The information provided from the consultant continues to be used in community engagement sessions in Petrolia to deal with a potential shortage of physicians at CEEH, Switzer added.
Sarnia-Lambton MPP Bob Bailey, who issued a new release about the issue Tuesday, said he doesn't buy Swi tzer' s claim that the LHIN was within its rights to single-source the contract.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty issued an order that no more sole-source contracts be allowed months after the Hay report was released, he said.
Bailey said he used to work in industry and if he circumvented a direct order from his boss, "I would have been going down the road looking for another job."
Article ID# 2809928
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Good Afternoon All:
As I said earlier while we rely on volunteers and donations in our fight to save SDH and local health services the LHIN and the Province waste huge sums of money that could go towards providing front line health services in our community. As the week unfolds I expect more revelations and I will try to keep you up to date as best I can.
Jeff Wesley, Chairperson-SOS
TORONTO - Ontario's health bureaucracy is facing yet another scandal in the wake of more revelations of spending and procurement abuses. In a special report released Wednesday morning, Auditor-General Jim McCarter outlines numerous problems at hospitals and local health integration networks (LHINs), regional funding agencies created by the Liberal government. McCarter points to the questionable hiring of pricey consultants, many of which were sole-sourced and often not required to justify the work they did. The report details a litany of questionable consulting gigs at hospitals, including one, worth $700,000, that was so vague it didn't even list a detailed description of services needed.
On 21/10/2010 4:12 PM, billpollock wrote:
> What a bunch of hogwash. This should have been taken care of a long
> time ago and now it may become legislation and if legislated it won't
> take effect until January 1, 2012. Maria certainly distorts the truth
> and is wearing her teflon suit. How dare she blame other political
> paties for her own party's incompetance. Talk about turning a blind
> eye to what's been going on. The Liberals have enjoyed the luxury of a
> majority provincial government and only because of public exposure
> have they majicly decided to try to attempt to do anything
> what-so-ever about this blatant disregard of tax payer money and of
> our public health care system. SHAME SHAME SHAME. Maria must consider
> us in the same regard as a pack of baboons. We must not be misled.
> SHAME SHAME SHAME.
>
Lambton-Kent-Middlesex PRESS RELEASE
NEW RULES, HIGHER STANDARDS RAISE THE BAR ON ACCOUNTABILITY
QUEEN’S PARK—There will be strict new rules preventing organizations funded with taxpayer dollars from using public funds to hire lobbyists to ask for more funding, says Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP Maria Van Bommel.
“The examples the Auditor found are unacceptable, which is why we are implementing all his recommendations and going even further,” said Van Bommel. “This is all about respect for taxpayer dollars, and remembering who is paying the bills. People expect their tax dollars to go into front line health care and public services, and that is our expectation too – that’s what our action today is all about.”
“Taxpayer dollars should not be used to hire an external lobbyist to ask for more taxpayer dollars – it is unacceptable, it’s gone on for too long, and it’s over today,” said Van Bommel. “The Conservatives and NDP were content to look the other way. We’ve been raising the bar by mandating public disclosure of expenses online, expanding the power of the Auditor General to investigate hospitals, school boards and universities, and expanding freedom of information legislation.”
“While the McGuinty government has cut consultant spending by half compared to the previous Conservative government, these new rules take another step forward for higher standards and increased accountability and transparency,” said Van Bommel.
The proposed Broader Public Sector Accountability Act would, if passed, bring in new rules and higher accountability standards for hospitals, Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) and the broader public sector around the use of external lobbyists, consultants and expenses. Hospital and LHIN executives could see reductions in pay, should they fail to comply with the requirements under the proposed Act. The new rules would also apply to school boards, colleges, universities, hydro entities, community care access centres, Children’s Aid Societies and other public sector organizations that receive more than $10 million in government funding.
In addition to ending the use of taxpayer dollars to hire lobbyists, the new rules would:
* Expand Freedom of Information legislation to cover hospitals.
* Require hospitals and LHINs to post expenses of senior executives online.
* Require hospitals and LHINs to report annually on their use of consultants.
“Using taxpayer dollars to hire an external lobbyist to ask for more taxpayer dollars is a practice that has gone on for too long – it’s unacceptable and it’s over. We have to focus our investments on front-line health care and public programs. It’s what the public expects and deserves,” said Health Minister Deb Matthews.
Contact: Maria Van Bommel, MPP @ 519-245-8696; 1-800-265-3916
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The new CKHA CEO Colin Patey continues to work with SOS and the community and we expect further positive developments in that regard. The SDH Corporations meeting is on Oct. 26th at 4:30 pm at the Oaks Inn (the day after the municipal election) and it is very important and we need a good turnout. SOS hopes to see you there.
Jeff Wesley Chairperson - SOS
TREVOR TERFLOTH
The Daily News
The Ontario Progressive Conservatives and the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance are at odds as to how a consultant deal transpired concerning the Sydenham Campus.
During Tuesday's Question Period, health critic MPP Christine Elliott said the contract was given to a Liberal-friendly consultant.
"Freedom of information records received by the PC caucus revealed that Chatham–Kent Health Alliance handed out a sole sourced contract after the Premier said these sweetheart deals were banned," she was quoted in a Conservative Party news release.
"The contract was for $30,000 to defend the plan to close the Wallaceburg emergency department."
Elliott said the deal was given to Laurie Lashbrook, who is married to federal London West Liberal candidate and former Liberal Party of Canada president Doug Ferguson.
The party stated the consultant was hired to defend the Hay Group's recommendation to close the Wallaceburg, Petrolia and Leamington emergency departments.
In 2009, the Hay Group gave its report to the Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network. However, the board has yet to make a decision and there have been numerous public consultations.
Colin Patey, president and CEO of CKHA, said the PC party's media release was misleading.
"We did not award the contract," he said, noting it was the LHIN. "Our role was in fact as a payment agency."
Because of that, Patey said he couldn't address why the consultant was hired or speak on the scope of the project.
A LHIN spokesperson couldn't be reached on Tuesday.
The PC media release, issued by Sarnia-Lambton MPP Bob Bailey, stated in the second paragraph that "the McGuinty Government gave an untendered contract" while later in the release Elliott said it was the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance.
Bailey could not be reached for comment, nor could local Liberal MPPs.
Although relatively new to CKHA, Patey said he has learned the background of the Sydenham Campus issue and stressed he will continue to work with the community.
Jeff Wesley, Save Our Sydenham chairman, said fewer dollars need to be spent on consultants.
He said his organization is frustrated with the province.
"That's money that could be going into health care and going into making services available for the local citizens in our communities," he said.
The Sydenham District Hospital board is slated to meet on Oct. 26 at the Oaks Inn from 4:30-6 p.m.
tterfloth@chathamdailynews.ca
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Local News TYLER KULA
The Observer
Bob Bailey and his Ontario Conservative Party claim the Dalton McGuinty government hired a consultant to promote the closure of local rural hospitals, including Charlotte Eleanor Englehart in Petrolia.
A news release issued by the Sarnia-Lambton MPP Tuesday states Laurie Lashbrook was given an untendered contract to defend the Hay Group Report, which in 2009 recommended the closure of emergency services at Petrolia, Leamington and Wallaceburg hospitals.
Lashbrook is married to current London-West Liberal candidate Doug Ferguson, who is also a former Liberal Party of Canada president.
"What else is new?" asked Arlene Patterson of the Sarnia-Lambton Health Coalition. "We've known this for a long time."
She said Ontario is creating centres of excellence, moving toward more privatization and a pay-for-performance model, all, she said, with an endgame of closing rural hospitals.
"Bluewater Health corporation has to shore up a deficit of $6 million. One way of doing that is closing small rural hospitals," she said.
Port Erie and Port Colborne recently closed their ERs, she said, and Bracebridge, Huntsville and Burks Falls were downgraded to urgent care facilities.
"The reason it's taking so long in this particular area, geographically, is because there was such an outcry from the community," Patterson said.
During Question Period Tuesday, PC health critic Christine claimed the Chatham–Kent Health Alliance handed out a sole-sourced contract "after the Premier said these sweetheart deals were banned. The contract was for $30,000 to defend the plan to close the Wallaceburg emergency department."
But Colin Patey, president and CEO of CKHA, said Bailey's release was misleading because it was the Erie-St. Clair Local Health Integration Network that awarded the contract.
"We did not award the contract. Our role was in fact as a payment agency," he said.
In the release, Bailey urges the Ontario Liberals to "stop spending money on public relations schemes to win favour in order to close rural hospitals and put that money where it is needed — with front-line health care, our nurses and doctors."
But Patterson criticized Bailey for not co-ordinating with the Health Coalition and other watchdog groups, saying she's seen no Conservative plan to bring about change.
Liberal Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP Maria Van Bommel did not return a call by press time.
The Hay Group Report was commissioned by the LHIN and recommended closing emergency services at hospitals in Petrolia, Leamington and Wallaceburg.
A large public backlash has so far staved off service reductions in Petrolia.
With files from QMI Agency.
tkula@theobserver.ca
Article ID# 2807071
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
October 1
Sydenham District Hospital Board of Directors September 30, 2010
Chatham-Kent Health Alliance
P.O. Box 2030
Chatham ON N7M 5L9
Delivered Via Email
Dear SDH Board Members:
RE; ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION AT THE OCTOBER 26, 2010 MEETING
On behalf of the S.O.S Committee please accept this request for items to be included in the agenda and discussed at the upcoming October 26, 2010 meeting with the SDH Corporation Members. We are supplying this request, in advance, so that the SDH Board can request the information necessary for an informed discussion. If you require anything further in regards to this request (since this meeting was already announced as scheduled at the last meeting we anticipate not having to follow all the formalities) please let me know as soon as possible. The requests are listed below.
We request that the Board of Directors, after consulting with the community, patients and staff at SDH (to determine priorities use the net accumulated income of the Endowment Funds (as at March 31, 2010) for equipment, repairs, updating and painting at the Emergency Department and SDH in general. The funds available, as per Note 10 of the SDH Financial Statements, amounts to $355,673. If you agree to this an approach could be made to the CKHA Foundation for a top up to $500,000 and there are those in our community (some of whom are members of SOS) who would be prepared to undertake a fundraising campaign for an additional $500,000 making $1 million available for the betterment of SDH. We ask that you take this proposal seriously.
· We request an itemized statement on the debits and credits to the net accumulated income of the SDH Endowment Funds for the period 1998 to present.
· On the four Financial Statements (Alliance, Public General, St. Joseph and Sydenham District Hospital) under Commitments, in Notes 11,13, 11, and 12 respectively, it lists that "The Alliance has entered into a contract for building and building equipment upgrades in order to reduce energy and operation costs. The project is expected to cost $5,656,900 of which $1,414,225 has been spent to March 31, 2010." Our question to the Board is how much of this $5,656,900 is for building and building equipment upgrades at SDH? Of the amount of $1,414,225 spent to date how much of that has been spent at SDH? Please provide details on what specifically this project will consist of.
· This item concerns borrowings amongst the three hospitals. On Note 2, Accounts Payable and Accrued Liabilities, PGH Financial Statements (pg 10), an amount of $804,700 is payable to SDH. On Note 2, Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable and Accrued Liabilities, SJH Financial Statements (pg 9) an amount of $496,497 is payable to SDH. The total of the combined borrowings is $1,301,197. Please explain what is taking place here and why. How are these funds paid back? Do these financial transactions work both ways, that is, is SDH able to borrow funds from PGH and SJH for use at SDH? If so, how is this done?
Thank you, in advance, for this opportunity to clarify some issues and concerns at the upcoming meeting on October 26th. If you require anything in regard to this request please let me know as soon as possible. We look forward to a mutually beneficial two way communication on the 26th.
Sincerely,
Jeff Wesley
Chairperson – SOS Committee
Hospital restructuring out of control: Health coalition ; HEALTH
Simcoe Reformer
Fri Sep 24 2010
Section: News
Byline: JOHN MINER, QMI AGENCY
The McGuinty Liberals are taking hospital restructuring to a whole new level, moving beyond what was attempted by either the Mike Harris Tories and the Bob Rae NDP, the Ontario Health Coalition warned Thursday.
"It is taking that notion and putting it on steroids," OHC director Natalie Mehra told a forum in London.
Mehra said the current funding of hospitals falls below the rate of inflation. With deficits outlawed, hospital officials are cutting beds, rehabilitation services, out-patient physiotherapy and speech pathology services.
"We are also seeing cuts to everything, maternity and child programs, cuts to operating rooms, and medical and surgical beds," she said.
In total, 3,000 nurses have been laid off since January, she said.
Under the Bob Rae government in the 1990s, 10,000 hospital beds were closed. Under the Harris government, 22 hospitals were shut down, 10,000 beds cut and 39 hospitals amalgamated into 12 or 13, Mehra said.
While the Rae and Harris governments restructured hospitals on a city level, the McGuinty government is basing it on the regions covered by Local Health Integration Networks.
"They are rationing hospital services across the whole LHINs. There will be two hospitals in a LHIN that provide all the chronic care beds and patients will have to travel to those beds. There will be one hospital that provides all the cataract surgeries and people will have to travel."
Based on leaked reports earlier this year, the Ontario Health Coalition is warning that the government plans to shift hospitals to a fee-for-service system similar to one adopted in Britain.
If the system is implemented, it will mean the government will set prices for procedures such as cataracts and stipulate the volumes.
Hospitals would bid for the work against each other and if they can't meet the set price or volumes, they will have to drop the service, Mehra said.
The system would mean instead of providing a wide range of services, hospitals would have to decide what areas they are competitive in.
"For instance, if I am the hospital in Strathroy, I need decide am I going to focus on volumes of cataracts or volumes of knee surgeries . . . What they want is hospitals that pump out high volume, low-cost surgeries," she said.
Mehra predicted the result will be hospital services being centralized into fewer sites.
For patients, it would mean traveling from hospital to hospital for different services.
The Ontario Health Coalition is holding regional forums on hospital restructuring across the province, including Hamilton, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, Ottawa and Toronto.
© 2010 Sun Media Corporation. All rights reserved.
________________________________________________________________________________
MPP, health minister defend hospital funding
The Sault Star
Fri Sep 24 2010
Page: A3
Section: News
Byline: FRANK DOBROVNIK, THE SAULT STAR
A meeting of the Ontario Health Coalition in Sault Ste. Marie Wednesday has prompted MPP David Orazietti and even Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews to defend the way hospitals will be funded in the near future.
The OHC is on a six-city tour sounding the alarm bells about the planned switch from block-grant funding to what the government calls "patient-based" and what opponents call "fee-for-service" funding.
OHC director Natalie Mehra said hospitals competing for dollars will result in lost funding and, subsequently, services at the ones that can't per-for m those services as efficiently.
"It's the opposite of the vision of relatively comprehensive hospitals that provide a relatively comprehensive range of services," Mehra said to approximately a dozen people at the Royal Canadian Legion Wednesday morning.
She warned of "rationing of health care across vast areas of the province" and raised the spectre of Saultites having to go out of town for more procedures. "This model does not fit Northern Ontario at all."
Preliminary details of the new funding plans were released last winter. Although the exact formula is still being worked out, a portion of funding will be based on the volume of procedures a hospital does.
In an interview with The Sault Star, Matthews agreed it will be a fundamental shift, but said it will translate into more incentive for hospitals to provide better patient care, not the opposite.
Currently, if a hospital "does 100 appendectomies or 300 appendectomies, they get the same amount of dollars. What we're saying now is, the more you do, the more you get paid," Matthews said from Toronto.
"Now we have a situation that in order to balance budget, they have to cut services ... That's not what we want to have in place. What we will have is an incentive to actually do more."
The idea is not entirely new in Ontario. For the last six years, hospitals have been given extra if they managed to perform more procedures, such as knee-and-hip replace-m ent and cataract surgery, and drive down waiting times.
The method was largely successful across the province, including at Sault Area Hospital. Cataract surgery dropped from a wait of 116 days in 2005 to 76 in May-July 2010, compared to a current provincial average of 116 days and a LHIN average of 107 days. SAH also has some of the shortest wait times for MRIs and CT scans in the province, although it lags behind for hip and knee replacements.
Matthews said the new funding formula will build on that wait-time strategy. She acknowledged certain hospitals will have certain strengths, but said they "don't anticipate" people in remote centres will lose services.
"We're looking to improve health care for people, and we do recognize that in a place like the Sault, it's important that a wide range of services be offered, in the Sault."
She also stressed small and rural hospitals, such as Matthews Memorial on St. Joseph Island, will not be included in the modified funding model, and added a "certain percentage" of hospital budgets will remain global, with the remainder based on volumes.
Orazietti also weighed in, sending a press release before the meeting started. The new model will "provide a clearer and more equitable set of guidelines to more effectively allocate funding," he said in the release.
"One of the major problems with the existing funding model is that it does not provide a strong business case for providers to improve quality or efficiency, and often can encourage providers to cut services in times of fiscal restraint rather than rewarding real efficiency improvements at the patient level."
He accused the "NDP-led" health coalition of instilling fear in people "in an effort to gain political points at the expense of improving health-care services in our community."
The OHC, whose membership includes the Ontario Federation of Labour, previously led a campaign against the way construction of the new hospital was funded.
Mehra was in London, Ont., Thursday and will be in Sudbury on Saturday.
© 2010 Osprey Media Group Inc. All rights reserved.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Welland Tribune
Mon Sep 20 2010
Section: Editorial/Opinion
Column: Letters to the Editor
The headlines read "Ambulance off-load delay rate soars." Paramedics are spending huge amounts of time waiting in ERs to unload their patients -- sometimes up to six and eight hours.
This reduces the amount of time the ambulance can be on the road and "resources become critically compromised," according to the recent Niagara EMS report.
This is a disaster waiting to happen.
Some regional councillors would have us believe it is a lack of funding, but this is not true.
Due to an increase of funding from the region of $3.1 million, EMS was able to purchase five new ambulances and 22 new staff members.
If you read the EMS report you will see the problem with off-load delays is the lack of beds as spelled out in the executive summary of the report.
Despite all the initiatives Niagara Health System has tried to implement, "the offload delays continue to climb" and restructuring of hospital emergency departments in Port Colborne and Fort Erie have increased off-load delays at the other three sites significantly.
Did you know the NHS is planning on cutting another 41 beds in the coming year? Read this in the Hamilton Niagara Halton Brant Local Health Integration Networkreport on complex care.
In a nutshell, this is why Niagara residents deserve an investigation of the NHS and a review of the chaos the HIP (hospital improvement plan) is creating.
Pat Scholfield Port Colborne
© 2010 Osprey Media Group Inc. All rights reserved.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
on Hospital Restructuring
and Market-Style Changes to Hospital Funding
In the U.K., it catapulted large hospitals into near-bankruptcies and helped spawn massive protests that saw thousands gather outside Westminster. It vastly increased administrative costs and brought in multinational for-profit clinics. What is it?
It is a major change in funding systems for hospitals that the Ontario government has announced it is introducing this year. Variously called “patient-centred funding”, “payment for procedure” and “activity based funding”, the plan is to move more of hospital funding from block grants to fee-for-service.
The vision is the opposite of relatively comprehensive local hospitals. The idea is to force hospitals to focus on services for which they can pump out higher volumes – ie. force centralization of services into fewer hospitals. Local hospitals would have less discretion in the services they provide, driven by funding levers held by Queen’s Park in Toronto. Those that cannot provide high volumes of certain services at a defined price would have to give up those services and focus on others. Pressure to conform to the cheapest rates – or “efficiencies” – puts pressure on the services that Queen’s Park does not deem to be priorities.
This funding system provides the basis for full-scale privatization of clinical hospital services. It means significant workforce pressures and new instability in funding. It sets the context for hospital competitive bidding and other damaging “market-style” reforms. It will drive up administrative costs and further damage the comprehensiveness of local hospital care.
The Ontario Health Coalition has researched the implications of this new funding model and is organizing a series of regional “summits” to provide a full briefing on the issues and an opportunity to discuss ways to respond.
If you want to know about what needs to be done with local health care then ask the people in the community who need and depend on it. Over the last couple of weeks here is what we have learned (as you read this keep in mind our local LHIN and Provincial Government tell us there is no more money for critical local health care services in our communities):
1. The Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) was going to pay (until they heard the backlash) Disney $9,500 for a 90 minute speech at an upcoming conference;
2. The part- time LHIN Board took home $246,000 in compensation and expenses in one year which included a 29% increase in compensation for the Chairperson alone;
3. The local LHIN chewed up $4.6 million in administrative expenses per year;
4. Now the LHIN tells us they will spend $1.5 million on yet another hospital review study (remember the Hay report). As if this was not bad enough the LHIN Board approved this expensive study AFTER the study had already began;
5. The Ontario Ombudsman reported that all LHINs were guilty of holding illegal secret meetings on emergency room and hospital closures – we knew this locally a long time ago but the local LHIN always denied it; and,
6. Finally, the legislation governing LHINs states that a mandatory review of the LHINs is to take place – a review that is sorely needed but a review the provincial government has now delayed.
So the next time the LHIN or the provincial government or even local MPPs tell you there is no more money ask them why they waste so much on non health care costs when this money could and should be redirected to where it needs to go – local health care practitioners and local health care services in our local communities.
If they would only listen.
Jeff Wesley
From today’s Peterborough Examiner (http://www.ThePeterbourghExaminer.com/).
Hospital CEO Ken Tremblay getting a 13% pay hike plus performance bonus, city councillor says
Local News
By BRENDAN WEDLEY/Examiner Municipal Writer
The city will ask the Peterborough Regional Health Centre board chairwoman about the hospital president's salary after a city councillor revealed Tuesday the medical community is upset with speculation that the head of the facility is getting a 13% pay increase.
The medical community has heard that Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) president and CEO Ken Tremblay is getting a 13% pay increase and he will be in line for a "very large" bonus if he meets certain targets by cutting jobs and services, Coun. Bob Hall said during a city council meeting.
"It's a community issue. It's serious," he said.
PRHC spokesman Jonathan Bennett told The Examiner he couldn't comment on Hall's statements Tuesday night.
Hall told council that he's not hearing about the salary speculation from the nurses' union or other union representatives from the hospital. The local medical community is talking about the situation at the hospital, he said.
Hall asked city staff to contact the Central East Local Health Integration Network and the hospital's chairwoman about the hospital president's salary.
He pointed out the provincial government has pledged to freeze public sector salaries.
City chief administrator Linda Reed told council she would contact the hospital board chairwoman.
Paul Darby, who retired as the PRHC president and CEO on Dec. 18, was paid $364,275 last year. His salary was $310,983 in 2008 and $269,419 in 2007.
Tremblay become the top administrator at the hospital on Feb. 1. His salary has not been disclosed.
The Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act requires provincially funded employers to disclose the names, positions, salaries and taxable benefits of employees paid $100,000 or more for the previous year by March 31.
The hospital is cutting jobs and beds under a plan to eliminate its deficit — the largest of any hospital in Ontario — over the next two years following a peer review ordered by the Central East LHIN.
— With files from Nicole Riva
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Conrad's Editorial
Isn't it obvious that there is something wrong? Highly paid CEO's that get bonuses if they reduce deficits by cutting jobs and beds in the very same way that Tremblay destroyed Sydendenham District Hospital. How many years will it take us to undo what Tremblay did to SDH? No one listens or cares at the provincial/MOH/Board level.
Board members should be elected by the community then they will be accountable and not simply rubber stampers.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Subject: letter to the editor
I very much enjoyed reading your recent editorial “A Mickey Mouse idea” (Wallaceburg Courier Press, August 26).
The Erie-St. Clair Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) must have been paying attention because they promptly scrapped the $9,500 plan to have two Disney consultants give a 90-minute presentation at their meeting at Caesars Windsor casino later this month.
It is little wonder that Ontario Ombudsman Andre Martin stated that they are “lacking in public confidence” is his recently released scathing report “The LHIN Spin”. He was particularly critical of the LHINs for adopting illegal by-laws to meet behind closed doors.
The local LHIN Board Chair stated all closed meeting were strictly to educate board members about aspects of the healthcare system. This is the same Board Chair who replied “I don’t think it’s a lot of money” when asked to comment on receiving a massive $54,075 in per diem payments last year for her part-time job. Many struggling families in our community would disagree.
Community members attended each open board meeting that discussed the future of our emergency department but were excluded from a September 22, 2009 closed meeting that discussed the “Small Community Hospital Emergency Department Study” which recommended the closure in Wallaceburg. The LHIN refused of offer a rational for conducting that meeting without public scrutiny.
The Ombudsman went on to state in his report that “We also determined that hospital planning is so erratic, so short-term and short-sighted, that the risk of closure of needed services in small and rural hospitals is now very high”.
The closure of the acute-care medical beds in Wallaceburg last year is a practical example of that risk; a decision that was made with no community consultation and supported by local LHIN CEO.
In response to recent allegations of withholding information the LHIN CEO, who was paid $313,119 last year, stated that he did not believe the public was “stupid enough” to believe those criticisms.
It is disturbing when disrespect is heaped on communities such as ours, whose only concern is ongoing access to a vital healthcare services. The province should immediately review the priorities and poor decisions of this bloated health care bureaucracy.
Jim Hasson
Wallaceburg ON
__________________________________________________________________________________
Sept. 1
Recruiting doctors to Petrolia a challenge, task force says
Local News Sarnia Observer
CATHY DOBSON
The Observer
It's a tough sell to bring new doctors to Petrolia and beef up ER coverage, say officials with the Sarnia-Lambton Physician Recruitment Task Force.
Since its inception in 2001, the task force has attracted 16 family physicians to Sarnia-Lambton. Two have opted to locate in rural areas of the county, specifically St. Clair Township and Wyoming. None have chosen Petrolia.
"We have heavily promoted Petrolia all the way along, especially when we talk to doctors who want to downsize their practice," said task force chairperson Ron Prior.
The task force offers financial incentives to doctors who relocate to Sarnia-Lambton and sign a four-year agreement to practise full-time.
Numerous potential recruits have toured Petrolia and considered opening an office there but several factors have dissuaded them, said Cindy Scholten, the task force recruiter.
She said those factors include:
• doctors prefer to be closer to the border;
• their spouse may not be attracted to rural life;
• doctors prefer to join a group of family physicians and walk into a "turnkey" office; and
• young doctors want to specialize in certain areas of medicine and can't get the time or space to do that at Petrolia's hospital.
"We've surveyed young medical students and those interested in a family practice say they want to specialize on the side and need time in a procedure room at the hospital," said Prior. "They see the need for more family doctors in rural communities but they go to where they can specialize."
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking for Petrolia to add to its roster of family physicians who can help to keep Bluewater Health's CEE Hospital emergency department open 24 hours a day.
Bluewater Health's board of directors has endorsed a plan to shut the Petrolia ER down nightly from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. starting Sept. 29 because there aren't enough physicians to cover shifts around the clock.
Neither the hospital, the physicians or the community wants to lose Petrolia's 24-hour emergency department but all say there is no choice unless new doctors come to town.
The Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network is reviewing the proposal but, so far, no options or solutions have been suggested.
"The task force and the Chamber of Commerce extended an offer to Bluewater Health to help," said Scholten. "But the hospital said it was their mandate."
While the task force focuses on attracting new family doctors, the hospital focuses on attracting new specialists to work at Bluewater Health.
The task force was established at a time when Sarnia-Lambton was drastically underserviced.
The area needs 18 more family physicians, Scholten said.
________________________________________________________________________________
Local News
On Thursday, August 26th the CLV Group organized a Community BBQ in the parking lot of one of the large apartment buidings they own on Wallace Street. SOS was invited to set up a table which was to provide an opportunity for those renting apartments and the public to hear about SOS and the work that is done to protect our Sydenham Hospital. I represented SOS at this Community event.
Everything was free to the public. They had a BBQ, food, soft drinks and water, games for children and beautiful gifts to be won.
Donations were accepted by SOS with CLV matching what was collected. The donations collected was $196.00 with a matched amount of $196.00 by CLV for a total of $392.00. Thank you to all who donated. Thank you CLV for your contribution.
I would personally like to thank Dave, CEO of CLV, Jeff Barnes ,Manager of CLV apartments on Wallace Street and Margaret Ave as well as Mary Jane Jacobs, Residential Rental Consultant for their hard work and their invitation to involve SOS in this first year event. It was a great success.
Conrad Noel, SOS Vice Chairman
_______________________________________________________________________________
Posted Sat. August 28th
From Wednesday’s Sarnia Observer (http://www.TheObserver.ca/). (August 25th)
LHIN approves $1.5M for hospital review
Posted By TREVOR TERFLOTH, QMI AGENCY
An overall review of Erie St. Clair's five hospitals is expected to be completed in December.
The Local Health Integration Network heard a report on the matter during Tuesday's board meeting.
Deloitte is the consultant for the review, which will determine the best ways to provide care, as well as improve efficiency.
However, board members had to retroactively approve the $1.5 million price tag, as the project began in July.
Brad Keeler, senior director of performance, contracts and allocation, said the procurement process took longer than expected.
He also said the cost had changed.
"We hoped to begin (the project) back in March," he said.
Keeler said a review of all the hospitals is an appropriate way of dealing with various issues.
He noted that hospitals face many common financial challenges, such as more patients and inflation.
"There is definitely not as much money as you need to operate the way you used to operate," he said. "Let's all work together and let's learn together."
Some board members questioned why the motion to approve funding was brought forward late.
David Wright, board vice-chairperson, said there had been a previous conference call concerning the project.
"This could have been handled with a telephone meeting of the whole board," he said.
Also during Tuesday's meeting, members heard of the new "stocktake" method of presenting performance indicators to the board, as well as the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.
"It's a more rigorous, focused process," Keeler said. "(With) more indicators of the system and how it's working or not working."
Article ID# 2728080
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Conrad's editorial comments:
With a $5-million budget and a staff of what – thirty? – the ESC LHIN have to spend $1.5-million on a consultant to review hospitals? What on earth do these people do? And then the Board retroactively approving it? Everything is getting more and more ridiculous.
Also, a conference call instead of an emergency meeting to deal with this critical issue, just does NOT make any sense.
Are the ES LHIN Directors pawns for the ES LHIN administration? I am getting to wonder.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
August 28
From today’s Windsor Star. The Observer ran a similar story today.
Tories turn up heat on health agency
Chairwoman should resign, opposition says
Ontario Conservatives are demanding the resignation of local health integration network chairwoman Mina Grossman-Ianni, who said the $54,000 she received last year for her part-time position is not "a lot of money."
Outrage from the opposition over Grossman-Ianni's comment came on the same day Erie St. Clair LHIN CEO Gary Switzer issued an apology for saying the public is not "stupid enough" to believe Conservative Leader Tim Hudak's "crap" and attacks on the beleaguered agency.
On Friday, MPP Bob Bailey (PC -- Sarnia-Lambton) blasted Grossman-Ianni, who received just over $54,000 in per diem payments in 2009 -- 29 per cent more than the previous year.
In an interview with The Star's Anne Jarvis, Grossman-Ianni said: "I don't think it's a lot of money."
"While $54,000 for a part-time job may not seem like a lot of money to Ms. Grossman-Ianni, patients in the Erie St. Clair LHIN know better," Bailey said in a news release.
Grossman-Ianni was "unreachable on the issue," LHIN spokesman Ron Sheppard said Friday.
Switzer, who's vacationing this week, also couldn't be reached for an interview, but he issued a written mea culpa Friday, offering his "sincerest apologies to the people of Chatham-Kent, Sarnia-Lambton and Windsor-Essex" -- the LHIN's coverage areas.
In an interview Wednesday, Switzer lashed out at Hudak, who has accused the Erie St. Clair LHIN of covering up Windsor pathology errors and blasted the agency for holding closed-door "educational" board meetings.
"Let's be very clear -- this guy is making this crap up and it's false. I don't think the public is stupid enough to believe him," Switzer told The Star.
In his apology he wrote: "These comments were inappropriate and do not reflect my view of the communities I serve," Switzer wrote in his apology.
"Although there is much negativity about our role in health care, I would like to stress that we are getting positive results," as examples shorter wait times for emergency care and procedures like hip and knee replacements.
The Erie St. Clair LHIN has been under intense scrutiny since Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin released a scathing report two weeks ago, blasting a bylaw that allowed the province's 14 LHINs to hold what he deemed illegal closed-door board meetings for education purposes.
The LHINs are charged with co-ordinating and funding health care services in their jurisdictions and their introduction in 2005 was touted as the solution to the centralized health care decision-making process at Queen's Park.
But critics call them bloated, ineffective bureaucracies that divert public dollars away from front-line health care.
The provincial Tories have been launching attacks on the LHIN system almost daily since the release of the ombudsman's report.
They point out that the $54,000 paid out to Grossman-Ianni could have covered a year's salary for a rookie nurse, 154 wheelchairs, 27 MRI exams or 1,350 pairs of crutches.
Bailey said Grossman-Ianni has donated $2,422 to the Ontario Liberal Party since 2003, and that her compensation is a "waste" of $54,000.
Per diems for the rest of the Erie St. Clair LHIN board, on which former president of the Windsor & District Labour Council, Gary Parent, sits, totalled $64,450 last year. The board also received $127,811 for expenses.
Switzer, who headed up Virgin Mobile Canada and was an executive with Cogeco Cable Inc. before he was named the Erie St. Clair LHIN CEO in 2005, made more than $313,000 last year, including performance bonuses.
This week, the LHIN pulled a $9,500 Disney presentation from its upcoming annual conference in Windsor after critics responded with outrage.
© Copyright (c) The Windsor Star
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
August 27, 2010
From today’s online Sarnia Observer (http://www.TheObserver.ca
Bailey calls for LHIN chairperson to resign
Local News
Posted By Cathy Dobson
Sarnia-Lambton MPP Bob Bailey is calling for the chairperson of the Erie St. Clair LHIN to resign over comments made by Mina Grossman-Ianni about her compensation.
Grossman-Ianni received $54,075 in per diem payments last year, a 29% increase over the year before.
She is on the record saying,"I don't think it's a lot of money."
Bailey said Friday Grossman-Ianni's comments are "outrageous."
"While $54,000 for a part-time job may not seem like a lot of money to Ms. Grossman-Ianni, patients in the Erie St. Clair LHIN know better," Bailey said. "At a time when health care services across the Erie St. Clair LHIN are being threatened, it's outrageous to suggest that it is acceptable to waste $54,000 for a Liberal donor to cash out."
The LHIN chairperson has donated $2,422 to the Ontario Liberal Party since 2003, according to Bailey's office.
Her position with the Local Health Integration Network is by provincial appointment.
Article ID# 2732619
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Editorial from today’s print edition of the Windsor Star.
Just a little stupid
The Windsor Star August 27, 2010
When Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Tim Hudak lashed out at the Erie-St. Clair Local Health Integration Network for allegedly withholding information, CEO Gary Switzer had this to say:
"Let's be very clear -- this guy is making this crap up and it's false. I don't think the public is stupid enough to believe him."
Aside from the fact Switzer's comments were inappropriate and unprofessional, we have to wonder if he believes the people served by the LHIN are somehow lacking in intelligence.
If we're not "stupid enough" to believe the criticisms of Tory Leader Hudak, does that mean we're only moderately stupid? With practice, could we achieve a level of stupidity that might be more acceptable?
We're not trying to be facetious. We are simply pointing out that Mr. Switzer's unfortunate response does nothing to assure citizens he understands the real and legitimate concerns they have about the Erie-St. Clair LHIN.
© Copyright (c) The Windsor Star
___________________________________________________________________________Augsut 27
Time to rein in LHINs
By Anne Jarvis, The Windsor Star
'Let's be very clear -- this guy is making this crap up," Gary Switzer, CEO of the Erie-St. Clair Local Health Integration Network, snapped Wednesday after another attack by Tory leader Tim Hudak.
Well, I'm not making this up. Mina Grossman-Ianni, chairwoman of the local LHIN, received a whopping $54,075 in per diem payments last year -- 29 per cent more than the previous year.
Per diems for the rest of the board, including a vice-chairman and seven directors, totalled $64,450. The entire board also received $127,811 for expenses. Grand total: almost a quarter of a million dollars.
"That's offensive," said a source high up in local health care.
"I don't think it's a lot of money," Grossman-Ianni said of her stipend.
It's outrageous. LHINs are supposed to save the health care system money. Board appointments are part-time positions. The few people in the public who actually know what a LHIN is (it co-ordinates and funds local health care) assume board members are volunteers.
As chairwoman, Grossman-Ianni gets $350 a day. The vice-chair gets $250 and board members $200. They are also reimbursed for expenses like mileage and meals. Some meetings last all day, Grossman-Ianni said. If she works part of the day, she charges part of the stipend. She made more last year because she worked more.
By contrast, local hospital board members get a cheap dinner at meetings. That's it.
By the way, LHIN board members are appointed by the Ontario government, which is odd since LHINs are supposed to provide local control over health care. Hospital board appointments are decided locally.
Switzer was paid $313,119 last year. But he wants to set the record straight. That was because he received one of his bonuses a year late. His actual salary is only $260,000. However, he's eligible for a 14 per cent performance bonus. He's received that bonus every year - notwithstanding the recent scathing report on Ontario's 14 LIHNs by provincial ombudsman Andre Marin.
Switzer's pay was $222,696 three years ago. He's moving up -- fast.
Seven of the LHIN's staff made Ontario's Sunshine List of provincial employees paid more than $100,000 a year. Every year, there has been one more person on the list.
The LHIN spent a total of $4.6 million on administration last year. That's a lot of money that could go toward the much-needed second cardiac catheterization lab.
Windsor Regional Hospital CEO David Musyj makes $265,000, substantially less than Switzer and his bonus, and as Musyj likes to point out, he hasn't had an increase since 2007. The hospital's entire non-union staff has had their pay frozen for two years. And hospitals, unlike LHINs, actually treat patients.
These fiefdoms were created in 2007 to control spiralling health care costs by rationalizing services and to provide communities with more say in their services. But they haven't done a good job at either mandate.
It takes three contracts to get a patient at home a bath, says health policy analyst Dr. Michael Rachlis of the University of Toronto.
The LHIN contracts with the Community Care Access Centre, which arranges home care.
The CCAC contracts with a home care service, and the service contracts with health care workers. There are lots of boards and CEOs in this system.
Other provinces think it's "pretty stupid," said Rachlis.
The Erie-St. Clair LHIN is working on rationalizing services at the five hospitals it covers in Windsor-Essex, Chatham-Kent and Sarnia-Lambton. It's paying a consultant $1.5 million to tell it what to do. The job was "beyond the resources" of the LHIN, said Switzer.
LHINs also don't include public health boards or even many doctors, Rachlis said. It's hard to plan health care without public health boards and doctors.
LHINs don't have much real power, either, he said. The province and the hospitals have the power. There was scant mention of the local LHIN when all hell broke loose at Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital recently. That's telling.
Switzer says his LHIN tries hard to engage the community, organizing public meetings and focus groups. So why doesn't anyone know what a LHIN is? Three-quarters of the community probably doesn't know what it is, said my source.
Illegal, secret board meetings at LHINs across Ontario, exposed by the ombudsman, showed only contempt for the idea of consulting the community. So did the responses by Switzer and local chairwoman Grossman-Ianni, who defended the meetings.
The province -- acting a year after seeing Marin's draft report -- had to tell them to stop.
We shouldn't abolish LHINs, like Hudak wants. With health care consuming 40 per cent of Ontario's budget and an aging population, we need to rationalize services, and local communities should have a say. But the first thing to be restructured, it's clear, is the LHINs.
ajarvis@thestar.canwest.com
© Copyright (c) The Windsor Star
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
August 27LHIN GIVES DISNEY THE HOOK
TYLER KULA
QMI Agency
The Erie-St. Clair Local Health Integration Network has scrapped a controversial $9,500 plan to conjure the magic of Disney into leadership training at its second annual conference, Sept. 27 in Windsor.
Two consultants from the entertainment giant were set to speak for 90 minutes at the conference at Caesars Windsor hotel and convention centre.
But due to mounting pressure from government and opposition leaders, that scheme is up in smoke.
"Obviously there's been sensitivities right now about spending in health care and issues such as this," said Ron Sheppard, the LHIN's engagement consultant.
Ontario's 14 LHINs came under scrutiny this month, following a scathing report from provincial Ombudsman, Andre Marin, criticizing their lack of transparency and accountability.
The conference agenda will now focus on quality and patient experience, Sheppard said.
Sarnia-Lambton MPP Bob Bailey, a Conservative, said he's glad the LHIN did the right thing.
"These guys, I don't know where they get their ideas from," he said. "It seems like there's a culture of entitlement to go out and waste, spend, money like this."
The decision was made Wednesday morning, Sheppard said, and was made locally.
"We received feedback that the decision was ours," he said, when asked if the move was a directive from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.
When asked if it was a mistake to enlist Disney consultants, Sheppard said Disney's record speaks for itself.
"They do training across the globe and have received accolades for their training," he said.
The Ontario Hospital Association used Disney at a conference earlier this year.
"It's not that they're irrelevant," Sheppard said. "Unfortunately the environment right now is such that it wouldn't be prudent to do that."
Keynote speakers at the day-long event include Michael Decter, a former deputy health minister and author of several books on health reform, and Ontario's current deputy minister of health, Saad Rafi.
Approximately 400 physicians, administrators and frontline staff are expected to attend.
Anyone wishing to go can register for $125. A bus is available to take Sarnia-Lambton residents to Windsor.
Article ID# 2730918
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
August 25, 2010
From today’s Toronto Star (http://www.TheStar.com). The Courier Press also did this week’s editorial on this story as well
$9,500 Disney consultants too goofy for McGuinty
Talk about a Mickey Mouse operation.
A scheme to spread Disney magic in the hopes of empowering a provincial health network was just too goofy for Premier Dalton McGuinty.
The Liberals moved swiftly once they discovered the Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) hired two Disney consultants to give a $9,500 keynote address at their upcoming Sept. 27 meeting at the Caesars Windsor hotel and convention centre.
A government source called it an "inappropriate use of taxpayer’s funds." The southern Ontario network first got a call from Queen’s Park advising them to scrap the address last week. The message was delivered again Tuesday.
But it wasn’t going to be Disney’s first foray into Ontario health care — the Ontario Hospital Association used Disney expertise for an all-day conference in downtown Toronto in May.
The LHINs came under intense scrutiny this month after the provincial ombudsman revealed one of the 14 bodies held "illegal" secret meetings to make decisions about emergency room closures and hospital restructuring. Opposition leaders have called for the current LHIN system to be abolished.
Created by former health minister George Smitherman to make community-based decisions on how to spend $21.5 billion in health care dollars, the LHINs employ nearly 300 people. In 2009/10 the LHINs spent $80 million on operation expenses such as wages, office rent and equipment.
The Disney Institute presentation was booked by the LHIN to provide a keynote address about "change management and leadership", said Ron Sheppard, a spokesperson for the network. "This isn’t about Mickey Mouse. Disney is one of the most successful corporations in the world."
Gary Switzer, chief executive officer of the LHIN, said a "team decision" was made to cancel the Disney contract late Tuesday or early Wednesday. .
Calling this an "incredible" and shocking use of taxpayers’ funds, NDP MPP France Gélinas (Nickel Belt) said the LHIN operators seem to have a sense of entitlement surrounding public money.
"They don’t learn. They have no respect for taxpayers’ money," Gelinas said from Sudbury. "Why did it take the premier’s office to phone them? How come no one had the good judgment to see that this was not right?"
The optics of this is truly awful, agreed Progressive Conservative MPP Norm Miller (Parry Sound-Muskoka). "What does Disney have to do with health care?" he asked. "At a time when the ombudsman has released a scathing report on LHINs, you’d think they would be more considerate with health care dollars."
The Ontario Hospital Association, a group representing 157 provincial hospital corporations, used Disney for an all-day conference on May 25 at Toronto’s Marriott Eaton Centre Hotel.
The hospital association billed the day-long event as "Disney’s Approach to Excellence" and offered seminars on people management, quality service and inspiring creativity with Disney "cast members".
Christopher McPherson of the OHA would not say how much it paid for the event.
Promotional material from the Disney Institute notes its professional development team is available for 90-minute keynote presentations at a cost of $10,900 within North America (although the LHIN would have paid $9,500). Topics available for discussion include "Leading Through Turbulent Times, Change Leadership and Inspiration to Innovation."
In Windsor, about 400 people are expected to attend the Caesars LHIN conference, said Sheppard. The official glossy program promoting the now cancelled Disney session is billed as "one-of-a-kind," providing an opportunity to hear the Disney story of leadership that began with Walt Disney himself.
With Disney now gone, there will still be two other keynote addresses. One is by health guru Michael Decter, a former Ontario deputy health minister and past Health Council of Canada chair, and, the other by Saad Rafi, Ontario’s current deputy minister of health and long-term care.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
How to heal health delivery
Micheal Rachlis
There are rising concerns about the LHINs, Ontario’s Local Health Integration Networks. On Aug. 10, Ombudsman André Marin accused at least some of the 14 LHINs of counting board members’ golf course and supermarket conversations toward their "community engagement" goals. In the past year several communities, including Niagara and Peterborough, have mobilized to fight planned LHIN reductions of hospital services.
Conservative Leader Tim Hudak has promised to dissolve the LHINs. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath more cautiously has called for a review and a moratorium on hospital restructuring.
At least some of the criticism of the LHINs is legitimate. However, all health systems in all jurisdictions have some regional approaches to planning. Not every town got a TB sanatorium in the 1920s or cobalt bombs for cancer in the 1940s. And the ministry strictly doles out cardiac or neurosurgery units now.
In 1974, Dr. Fraser Mustard’s Task Force recommended the creation of district health councils and local ministry operational units. Then-premier Bill Davis only established the district health councils as voluntary planning bodies. Thirteen years later, Dr. John Evans recommended a series of integrated regional models for Ontario to consider. Over the years, premiers David Peterson, Bob Rae, Mike Harris and Ernie Eves punted these ideas. Meanwhile, every other province created regional authorities. Finally in 2006, Premier Dalton McGuinty established the 14 LHINs.
Of course, government policies are mainly driven by politics, not necessarily good evidence. So why bother learning the evidence? Stephen Harper and Tony Clement’s cancellation of the long-form census has taken this attitude to new lows. And, partly because of this attitude, there is little rigorous evidence on the performance of the Ontario LHINs and other Canadian regional models.
However, it is safe to say that Ontario's approach to LHINs is unwieldy. In other provinces, regional authorities directly deliver the vast majority of home-care services with their own staff. In Ontario, there are three levels of contracts before the patient gets a bath. The LHINs contract with community care access centres for home-care services. Then the CCACs send out RFPs (request for proposals) and eventually sign contracts with various for-profit and non-profit entities. Then the home-care agency signs contracts with individual workers, most of whom are non-unionized. The Ontario high foreheads cite this "purchaser provider split" as if it were a biblical prohibition. Other provinces cite this approach as proof of Ontario’s pride-goeth-before-the-fall exceptionalism.
The other provinces also at least had the political leadership to disestablish most of their hospital boards. The McGuinty government judged that Ontarians would resist a similar step here. However, as a result the LHINs are seen as just another administrative tier. And, partly because other corporate boards remained, the LHINs have very few expert human resources with which to fulfill their immense job descriptions.
Finally, the LHINs legislation doesn’t mention public health and there is little coordination between public health and the rest of the health system. The province’s H1N1 flu management problems last fall reflected this lack of integration.
Something will happen to the LHINs, probably after the next election. And, every other province has at least tinkered with their regional models.
Here’s some advice to the government as it reviews the LHINs and the governance of Ontario’s health-care system: Start with form following function. Some services, like cardiac care, cancer and emergency services need top-down command and control. Some services, like care of the frail elderly and health promotion, beg for freewheeling bottom-up, democratic, non-profit entrepreneurship.
In B.C., the provincial health services agency coordinates eight specialized agencies, including the B.C. Centre for Disease Control. Cancer Care Ontario plays a similar role for oncology services and could be a model for a provincial health agency in this province.
Ontario’s 80 community health centres are governed by elected community boards and typically engage hundreds of their residents every year. And that’s not counting chats in line at Tims!
Quebec’s 95 local health boards and England’s 151 Primary Care Trusts are much closer to their communities than Ontario’s 14 LHINs. Ontario should consider establishing democratic control at the local primary health-care level, where most health is delivered.
Finally, regional level governance could be established building on local primary health-care boards.
The LHINs have been a baby step to better integration. Ontario should review its regional model and then reorganize the governance of the health system to balance efficiency, effectiveness and community participation.
Dr. Michael Rachlis is a health policy analyst and an associate professor at the University of Toronto.
Posted By BRUCE CORCORAN
Tim Hudak and the provincial Tories call Local Health Integration Networks "bloated bureaucracy." And local LHIN CEO Gary Switzer doesn't like such nomenclature.
Too bad.
Maybe "high-priced insulators" is a more apt term. But it's likely one Switzer and his cronies won't like much either.
That's what LHINs are: organizations that enact health-care policy drawn up in Queen's Park, many kilometres away from small-town Ontario, and drastically out of touch.
The LHIN regurgitates policy, looking for ways to cut costs a la Queen's Park big-city, cookie-cutter approach without seeing what kind of damage to the communities could result. Think back to the potential ER closures at small rural hospitals such as those in Petrolia and Wallaceburg. In 2009, the Hay Report -- commissioned by the local LHIN -- recommended ER closures in these facilities. Backlash by the public and health-care professionals helped defer any action. It was so negatively charged towards the LHIN and the government, and there were other such issues elsewhere in the province, that the government actually stepped in and formed its rural and northern health-care panel in the summer of 2009 to examine the state of health care outside urban Ontario.
Nice, job, budget facilitator, er, LHIN.
Switzer is well compensated. In fact, in 2009, the year the LHIN sought to club the ERs in two of the rural hospitals in its region, he earned bonuses from his employer, the government, that brought his salary up past the $313,000 mark. He made more in 2009 than the prime minister.
Having a CEO making three times the Sunshine Club threshold does sound a bit bloated, doesn't it?
Need we mention the two senior directors at the LHIN who pocketed more than $154,000 each in 2009, or the senior consultant that walked away with more than $119,000 that year?
Extrapolate that to the 13 other LHINs in Ontario.
Switzer said anyone calling the LHINs a waste of money isn't seeing the big picture, as the Erie-St. Clair LHIN has an operating cost of $4.6 million, but administers a budget of $954 million. True. But that budget is to hospital groups with equally bloated bureaucracies. Directors of miniscule departments make six figures and a hospital CEO, who few people were sad to see head east earlier this year, pocketed more than $285,000 in 2009.
Need we remind these bloated bureaucrats and their bureaucracies that the average family income in Chatham-Kent -- yes, family, not individual -- is $67,500?
When you individually take home more than 4.5 times what the average family in C-K does, and those hardworking folks are paying your salary through taxes, you are bloated.
Article ID# 2721208
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
August 13
Sir: You may remember the song, "Stop the World and Let Me Off." To the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance (CKHA), I say stop the Imagine Project and let Sydenham District Hospital (SDH) off and out.
Someone, anyone, everyone on the Imagine Steering Committee lend me your ear, yes, I mean the tri-board of directors, the ESC LHIN and hospital management.
On July 2, 3, 4, the Wallaceburg District Secondary School (WDSS) held its 60th anniversary reunion. The school was built in 1950, its first expansion took place in 1967, and there have been a few add-ons since. There is not an inkling of any Imagine planning to address the needs of this "aging facility." Yet the school houses our young people, Canada's future!
Of course, WDSS has been the recipient of continuing love, care and upkeep.
Now hear this! SDH was built in 1956 and in 1967 an expansion doubled its floor space.
Respectfully, I question triboard executive committee chair, Jennifer Wilson's, "Our facilities date back 50 years and have served us well, but we need new facilities that support modern health-care delivery and will be there for us long into the future."
How long? How far into the future? And what "modern" health care will it deliver in Wallaceburg?
Will you return the ultrasound machine the Alliance moved to Chatham? Or perhaps the 20 acute care/medical beds CKHA removed July 2009? Will the ESC LHIN assure us that the six ICU beds will make it back to Wallaceburg, and reassure us that the emergency room will stay open forever?
Surely the "new facility" will house Sydenham's own modern telephone system to go along with modern health-care delivery? I'm just asking, mind you.
Health care, modern and otherwise, is about people, not buildings. It is, and always must be about sick folk, injured people, doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, lab techs, radiologists, specialists, and equipment bringing health and healing to people in their own communities.
Role 3 Multinational Hospital is located on the Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan. The facility is made out of freight containers, plywood, duct tape and wires. The hospital treats not just soldiers, but local Afghan children and adults who arrive with head injuries, limbs blown off, burns, chest wounds and on it goes. The sound of choppers announces the arrival of multiple casualties and seemingly never stop. The Canadian Military Medical staff are on call 24/7 for six-month tours of duty. This is delivering modern health care!
Don't Imagine. Just do it. Deliver health care, not bricks and mortar, and take good care of the buildings already under your management.
The sign in front of a local business reads "No price increase in three years due to efficiency." Imagine what the ESC LHIN could do with its $1 billion budget if efficiency was the mindset of the CEO.
-- Anne Stewart Wallaceburg
Article ID# 2712826
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
August 12
LHIN to end closed meetings
CATHY DOBSON
The Observer
A policy that has allowed monthly closed meetings over the past five years will immediately be taken off the books, says the chairperson of the Erie-St. Clair Local Health Integration Network (LHIN).
Mina Grossman-Ianni said Wednesday her organization, which holds the purse strings for health care services in Sarnia-Lambton, has responded to a scathing report released earlier this week by Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin.
Marin's research found that all LHINs work under a provincial bylaw that allows board members to have education sessions behind closed doors. He called the meetings illegal.
"Unfortunately, this practice is antithetical to the LHIN model," Marin wrote in his report. "It serves to undermine the integrity and credibility of the LHIN's decision-making and, in my view, is simply illegal."
"I was surprised by the tone of the first portion of the report," said Grossman-Ianni. "I was amazed by some of the words he used like 'illegal.'
"Those meetings were absolutely within the law. If he doesn't like the law, that's another story."
Grossman-Ianni said the Erie-St. Clair LHIN was holding the meetings based on a bylaw established by the Ministry of Health and Longterm Care when LHINs were set up five years ago.
All closed meetings were strictly to educate board members about aspects of the healthcare system in their region, she said.
"We've had an overview on longterm care, for instance. And every year we have someone come to talk about the emergencies at all seven of our hospitals."
Minutes were not taken but votes were not held either, Grossman-Ianni said, adding that she didn't know why the meetings would be held behind closed doors in the first place.
"We never did any board business, just learning a little bit more about our business."
The next education session for the Erie-St. Clair LHIN is scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 24 at 11 a.m. at the LHIN offices in Chatham-Kent. It will be open to the public, followed by the monthly business meeting at 1 p.m., Grossman-Ianni said.
"They were never a secret. We've been directed by the minister to have all our meetings open now and we think that's just fine."
Grossman-Ianni admitted there is public complaint about how open and transparent LHINs are, but said a great deal of public consultation already takes place.
"I think that when you're dealing with the hospital and very, very emotional topics, people can be very critical," she said. "We're taking (Marin's report) as a suggestion and will try to do better on all fronts."
She said LHINs are trying to solve issues related to health care that have existed for years and that raises the public's concerns.
"But I think we're a better place to solve those problems than in Toronto," she said. "We're here to make changes to health care and we're local. There are representatives from Sarnia-Lambton.
"I think we're doing a very good job."
cdobson@theobserver.ca
Article ID# 2708721
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
August 11
Health Minister is in Denial--
Refuses to Re-evaluate Draconian Hospital Cuts
The time is now to contact Premier McGuinty and tell him what you think of his hospital cuts and the LHINs
The media has now managed to get Health Minister Deb Matthews' response to a scathing report on the LHINs by Andre Marin Ontario's Ombudsman released yesterday. In her first responses since the release of the ombudsman's report, the Health Minister has continued her government's stubborn refusal to review, evaluate, or concede in any way that there is a problem with her government's deep hospital cuts and the behaviour of her government's deeply unpopular LHINs.
In his report, "LHIN Spin" the ombudsman found LHIN’s across Ontario had passed by laws allowing them to meet in secret to discuss restructuring (ie. cuts) decisions without public scrutiny. He stated that the LHINs had rendered public consultation requirements "meaningless" and had counted individual conversations in grocery stores or on the golf course as "consultations".
Health Minister Deb Matthews says she has "complete confidence in the LHIN," stressing that there will be no repercussions against the board of directors and that hospital restructuring in Hamilton and Niagara will go on as planned.
6 hours ago Hamilton Spectator (1 occurrences)
Matthews said, "Let me be clear, I don't concede it was illegal."
6 hours ago Hamilton Spectator (1 occurrences)
Yesterday, the Ontario Health Coalition called for a proper review and evaluation of the worst of the recent LHIN hospital cuts decisions. In every case we outlined, the LHIN operated without full information, without a proper assessment of the effect of their cuts on access to publicly-funded health care services, without meaningful consultation, and without coordinating the availability of community-based services and hospital care. In every case, vital hospital care has been cut for tens of thousands of local residents leaving them without adequate access to Canada Health Act services and crucial preventive care.
We can win change, but we need to take this time to let the McGuinty government hear what communities really think about the hospital cuts and the LHINs. Please ask your friends and neighbours to take a minute to write in.
Let Premier Dalton McGuinty know what you think about the Health Minister's refusal to listen to any criticisms or concerns about her government's hospital cuts. If you have already done it in the past, the time is now to do it again. Let him know what you think about your LHIN and whether you see the health system as worse or better since the LHINs were created. Encourage your friends, family and neighbours to do the same. Don't let them continue to refuse to act on reasonable concerns raised about their LHINs and the loss of vital hospital services.
Contact the Premier at:
Premier Dalton McGuinty
Room 281, Main Legislative Building,
Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario M7A 1A1
Tel 416-325-1941
Fax 416-325-3745
dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Conrad's EditorialDon't wait until the 2011 elections to tell McGuinty that there is a problem. Send copies of your letters to Van Bommel and Hoy.
________________________________________________________________________________
Toronto – The Ontario Health Coalition applauds Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin’s report "The LHIN Spin". But the Coalition is deeply concerned that the McGuinty government has evaded it legislative requirement to conduct a full review of its Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) and the legislation that governs them and is continuing a major round of health system cuts and restructuring while shutting out virtually all public advocates that have expressed concerns or criticized their reforms. Ironically, though the Ombudsman gave credit to the Ministry of Health for belatedly setting proposed standards for LHINs’ public consultation, the Ministry has not consulted with public advocates who have experience trying to work with the LHINs regarding these standards.
Ombudsman Andre Marin reported that the McGuinty government appointed LHINs have rendered community engagement "meaningless". He stated that LHIN board members counted conversations on golf courses and in grocery stores as public consultations. He noted that they relied on presentations of the provider organizations to make decisions affecting access to health care for tens of thousands of residents. He was particularly critical of the LHINs for adopting illegal by laws to meet behind closed doors.
But the Ombudsman is limited in his mandate to review only the application of public policy, not the policy itself. After cross-province public hearings attended by more than 1,150 residents, and after reviewing 487 written and oral submissions this spring, the Ontario Health Coalition concluded:
"In particular, we determined that the LHINs are so lacking in public confidence, so flawed in their size and confused in their mandate, that we have recommended that the province change direction and create new accountable regional planning bodies closer to home with a principled and clear mandate. We also determined that hospital planning is so erratic, so short-term and short-sighted, that the risk of closure of needed services in small and rural hospitals is now very high. As a result, we have heeded the many calls from communities to recommend that the province set standards for hospital services and distance to care." To see the full report and recommendations, go to www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca
"McGuinty government has instigated the deepest health care cuts that we have seen since the hospital restructuring 15 years ago," noted Natalie Mehra, director of the Ontario Health Coalition. "From the outset the government has obscured its plans and the situation has only worsened in recent years. Since the departure of George Smitherman as Health Minister two years ago, the Ministry of Health has adopted a "closed shop" mentality. The LHINs behaviour, so criticized by the Ombudsman is entirely consistent with the Ministry of Health’s practice of shutting out to all public interest advocates that might disagree or raise concerns with their hospital cuts and restructuring. This is a short-sighted and deeply undemocratic approach to governance. It has made for poor and deeply unpopular decision-making that threatens access to vital health care services. The McGuinty government must change its approach to embrace democratic discussion that is a requirement for sound policy making."
"The fact that the Ministry of Health has belatedly removed the illegal by-laws adopted by their appointees in the LHINs does not go far enough," she continued. "The McGuinty government must conduct a full review of the LHINs as is required in their own LHINs legislation. This review cannot merely consist of a consultant’s report – it must include full public consultation including municipalities and local health advocates that have experience trying to work with the LHINs. The Ministry of Health must conduct a full review of recent LHIN decisions that have resulted in deep cuts to needed hospital care."
* The McGuinty government must heed the call of the municipalities, MPPs, physicians, nurses, and all public interest health care groups in Niagara to send an Investigator under the Public Hospitals Act into the Niagara Health System to evaluate and re-assess the restructuring plan that has resulted in the closure of emergency and acute care hospital services in Port Colborne and Fort Erie and ongoing cuts in Welland and Niagara Falls. In our cross-province consultations we found among the worst areas in the province for access to hospital care in Niagara. Patients and families reported that they have waited in some cases four days in emergency departments on stretchers. Nurses, paramedics and physicians described conditions as unsafe and in crisis.
* Similarly, the decision to push through major cuts and restructuring that has been opposed by physicians, nurses, support workers, community groups and patients alike in Hamilton must also be reviewed and re-evaluated with full public consultation.
* The McGuinty government must evaluate and consult with the public on recent decisions by LHINs in Peterborough and Cobourg to force through deep hospital cuts that affect access to vital hospital care. In Cobourg the cuts have deprived thousands of residents access to Canada Health Act covered rehabilitation services and diabetes care. In Peterborough, the LHIN has just approved a draconian set of hospital cuts without ever requiring the hospital to outline the impact of cutting 182 nurses and front-line support staff on hospital services, including how many hospital beds would be rendered unusable as a result, nor how many diagnostic tests would be cut.
This summer, McGuinty government-appointed LHINs are making decisions about closing emergency departments overnight in Petrolia and St. Marys. The coalition will be releasing a full report this fall on hospital cuts that continue across Ontario.
For more information: Natalie Mehra 416-230-6402 (cell), Sue Hotte, Niagara Health Coalition (905) 932-1646 (cell)
The Ontario Health Coalition is Ontario’s largest public interest group on health care. We represent more than 400 member organizations including patient advocates, seniors’ groups, community health advocates, Friends of local hospitals, more than 70 local health coalitions, health professionals, nurses, unions, social and health service agencies, and ethnic and cultural organizations. Our mandate is to preserve the public health system under the principles of the Canada Health Act.
Ontario Health Coalition
15 Gervais Drive, Suite 305
Toronto, ON M3C 1Y8
www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca
416-441-2502
|
Updated: Tue Aug. 10 2010 1:02:20 PM TORONTO — A local health agency set up by the Liberal government held "illegal, secret meetings" to discuss restructuring hospital services in Hamilton and Niagara, including the closure of two emergency rooms, Ombudsman Andre Marin reported Tuesday. But the Hamilton-Niagara-Haldimand-Brant Local Health Integration Network met its lawful requirement to consult the community on the proposed hospital changes by talking with people on the golf course or in line at the grocery store, reported Marin. "Our investigation revealed that despite the strong language in the legislation, the reality of 'community engagement' is that it's a wishy-washy grey zone -- and this particular LHIN took advantage of that to render it almost meaningless," Marin said at a press conference. "They used these secret meetings -- seven for the Niagara plan, four for the Hamilton one -- to discuss the restructuring plans with the key players away from public view." All the LHINs opened themselves up to legal challenges of their decisions -- including the move to shut the emergency rooms in Fort Erie and Port Colborne -- by "being sneaky," meeting in secret and not properly documenting the discussions, said Marin. "These LHINs that did substantive deliberations and took in submissions and had discussions that were undocumented, out of view of the public, have now put themselves in a very precarious situation vis-a-vis the law," he said. The practice of holding secret meetings spread to all 14 LHINs across the province is "creeping like hog weed" and shutting the public out of key decisions regarding local health care services, said Marin. "Members of the public are left to wonder if the meetings they are allowed to attend are just a rubber stamp, with the real engagement going on in private, inside the LHIN's boardroom," he said. The report, called The LHIN Spin, didn't look into the merits of the decision to close the ERs -- Marin doesn't have jurisdiction over hospitals -- but said the Hamilton-area LHIN clearly failed to properly consult the community on its restructuring plan. The Ministry of Health had "a last minute change of heart" Monday and agreed to tell the 14 LHINs across Ontario to stop the secret meetings, said Marin. "I welcome this late development from the ministry as it will bring the LHINs in compliance with the law and will increase transparency and accountability in their decision-making," he said. Even though they were set up so health-care decisions are made at a local level, Marin said the LHINs' "reality of community decision-making has fallen fall short of the political spin." The Opposition vowed to scrap all 14 LHINs and invest the money that is spent on that level of bureaucracy back into front line health services if it wins next year's election and would re-open the Fort Erie emergency room. "The fact that the ombudsman has clearly said that these decisions were arrived at by an illegal bylaw and secret meetings tells me that those decisions to close down those (Niagara-area) ERs must be revisited immediately," said Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak. "I reject the premise that the LHINs are about regionalization. I think they're a veil for the government to hide behind." The New Democrats also accused the Liberal government of hiding behind the LHINs whenever unpopular health care decisions have to be announced, and called the Ombudsman's report "deeply, deeply" troubling. "Instead of a smart system of accountable, community health care, we have a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy," said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath. "I'm calling for a moratorium on all hospital restructuring until a full scale review of LHINs has taken place." Premier Dalton McGuinty said Tuesday that his government would rather make improvements to LHINs as needed rather than engage in the full review that was promised when the local health networks were set up in 2006. However, a spokesman for the premier later clarified a review of the LHINs was still required by law, but couldn't say when it will be held. Opposition critics predicted it won't come until after next year's Ontario election. |
MPP Pat Hoy today announced $3,330,500 that includes for the first time ever, the Leamington and Chatham-Kent hospitals, as Ontario is expanding its successful Pay-for-Results Program to reduce ER wait times and ensure that local residents can get the emergency care they need, sooner.
“Patients deserve timely, high quality care when sudden injury or illness takes them to the hospital Emergency Room. We continue to work with hospitals to ensure their ERs are running as efficiently as possible,” said Hoy.
Hoy said local funding for 2010-11 in the Erie St. Clair LHIN area includes:
$300,000 to Leamington District Memorial Hospital.
$789,400 to Chatham-Kent Health Alliance.
$1,205,400 to Windsor Regional Hospital.
$1,035,700 to Hotel Dieu Grace Hospital.
Since it was created in 2008, the program has already helped the 46 participating hospitals reduce ER wait times by 23 per cent. The program helps hospitals meet specific ER wait time reduction targets. This year, 71 Ontario hospitals will receive Pay-for-Results funding, including Leamington District Memorial Hospital and Chatham-Kent Health Alliance. All of them have committed to treating more patients within the targets, aiming to improve by 15 per cent over the course of the year.
________________________________________________________________________________
Sir: Last week , the Sydenham District Hospital Corporation discussed physician recruitment and CKHA’s failure to recruit physicians for the Wallaceburg site.
When asked to respond as to why no physicians had been recruited for Wallaceburg, Dr. G.Tithicott, Chief of Staff for CKHA, explained to the Corporation members that physicians’ priorities had changed, that some wanted different lifestyles that could not be provided in Wallaceburg, that some wanted assurances that their spouses would be found employment, that some did not want to work in hospitals or ER’s and other numerous reasons.
Dr. Tithicott went to explain that the provincial health care budget only went so far, and that the crowd would be astounded to know how many health care dollars were needed in the "905", which is a reference to the greater Toronto area. He said that particular area just eats up health dollars.
Dr. Tithicott is correct. There are so many people in the Toronto area, who need health care, treatment, and follow-up. They need assessment and care by surgeons, psychiatrists, rheumatologists, paediatricians, gerontologists and more. They need to be seen at Nurse Practitioner clinics, Diabetic clinics, sleep clinics, family doctors’ offices, counsellors’ offices and more. They need access to home care, hospitals, nursing homes, referral centers through Community Care Access centres, laboratory and diagnostic imaging clinics, and more.
The public who resides in Toronto deserves all of these services, as does every person in Wallaceburg and area, Chatham Kent and in Ontario.
Every Ontario community has its needs. We still have a publicly funded health care system, which is supposed to guarantee equitable access to health services. The Wallaceburg community needs more physicians, and through the CKHA, these physicians must be recruited. While this is a difficult task, the Alliance has a duty to make legitimate attempts to bring physicians to both of its campuses. SOS, SDH Corporation and the Wallaceburg community are willing to help.
The CKHA talks about being innovative in its approach to providing health care. It is time for the CKHA to become innovative when recruiting physicians especially for Wallaceburg. Just look at the Petrolia situation. The Minister of Health and Long term Care flashed a possible incentive of up to $75,000.
Premier McGuinty’s ESLHIN employees should be more pro-active in brings doctors to both Wallaceburg and Chatham.
Our MPP’s , Van Bommel and Hoy should be more vocal about the needs of this community. The local MPP’s and the Premier need to know this community expects a better effort from them, our elected officials to provide health care services. A better effort would require the provincial government to fund hospitals appropriately, as well as all health services for which they are responsible. As the provincial election looms closer next year, it would behoove the MPP’s and Mr. McGuinty to listen to the citizens.
Thank you.
Conrad Noel
Wallaceburg
To the editor:
I was pleased to attend a meeting last week, of the Sydenham District Hospital Corporation, and its’ Board. Heads of the Public General Board and the St. Joseph’s Board, as well as CKHA’s new CEO, Colin Patey were present, along with members of the CKHA Senior team and the current Chief of Staff, Dr. G. Tithicott.
The members of the SDH Corporation asked questions about maintenance at SDH. Comments were made about the general disrepair of the Sydenham building. The Chief Financial Officer at CKHA, Anthony DiCaita, responded to these queries, by explaining that there was a finite amount of money in the health care budget, and tough decisions were being made province wide. Some projects had to wait.
As a retired Registered Nurse, I had strong reactions to Mr. DeCaita’s comments. There is a real difference between up-grades and renovations having to wait until there is sufficient money in the budget, and basic up-keep and repair projects which need to proceed, when needed.
I am told that many repairs have been done on the third floor of the SDH, where the Continuing Care unit is located. When I asked how this has been accomplished, I was told that there was available money in the Continuing Care budget.
Shona Elliot, Vice President of Human Resources, who is responsible for the portfolio of Health and Safety, commented that the SDH elevators will shortly be repaired. This has taken a mere 3 or 4 years to accomplish.
The Emergency department remains in disrepair. The cupboard doors at the nursing station regularly fall off their hinges. Drawers at the nursing desk do not open or close properly. There is a hole in the floor in one of examination rooms; this has been covered with duct tape, and a garbage can was placed over it. Some examination lights do not provide enough light, which means the staff and physicians cannot see well, when examining a patient. The doors on several examination rooms are marked by scuffs from moving stretchers. The floor entering the department is torn, and "fixed" with duct tape. The cast equipment cart is rusted. One of the sinks will not turn off easily, and much force has to be used to shut off the water. Windows on the north side of the first floor need repair and replacement. Anthony DiCaita, the Vice President of Finance holds the portfolio for Emergency Services.
These examples of unaddressed problems do not present a good face to the public and affect morale of the staff. Everyone perceives that repairs are not being done in the Emergency Department for a reason. Could it be that the CKHA was not willing to spend money on a department which was about to be closed?
This disrepair also represents a potential danger to the patients and visitors to the Emergency department and to staff. These are not "projects" that would enhance the work being done there. These are basic repairs that would ensure the work being done in the ER can continue.
While this is a problem for the CKHA to fix, responsibility also lies with the Erie St. Clair LHIN for decreasing hospital budgets, and of course with our MPP’s and Premier Dalton McGuinty for not respecting the work that hospitals do, through their inadequate funding.
Please contact your MPP’s and the Premier’s office, and tell them that your vote is as important as your local hospital. Tell them to fund health care, and hospitals appropriately.
Thank you.
Shirley Roebuck, Reg. N.
Port Lambton.
_________________________________________________________________________________
SMALL-TOWN ERS UNDER UNFAIR FIRE
Sir:I am writing about the nighttime closure of the CEE emergency department in Petrolia and the impact of that closure on our community. This downsizing is similar to what the Hay report recommended.
The Erie-St. Clair LHIN assured Petrolia that the ER would not be touched for five years; now they say that Bluewater Health's plan to deal with MD shortages is not acceptable.
To date, the Sydenham District Campus emergency department continues to operate 24 hours per day. It is true that Health Force Ontario physicians account for a small part of the MD coverage of the department, but in reality it is the forts of Dr. R. Mayo, and Dr. D. Atoe that have ensured that our emergency department is properly staffed by physicians.
The doctor recruitment efforts of the Chatham Kent Health Alliance have only resulted in new physicians for the Chatham and Tilbury area.
Although Dalton McGuinty's LHIN's are talking about better access to health care through Urgent Care Units, Family Health Teams and specialty clinics, access to health care is still needed after clinics are closed. Access to local emergency care is needed 24 hours a day.
It is unacceptable to have allowed the Petrolia emergency department to be downsized, and it is just as unacceptable to have the same even be considered here in Wallaceburg. This community will not tolerate such action. Responsibility lies with the Chatham Kent Health Alliance to aggressively recruit doctors for both Chatham and Wallaceburg, and responsibility lies with the Erie St. Clair LHIN to support and fund CKHA's efforts appropriately.
We should not forget the responsibility of our MPPs and Dalton McGuinty. The voters stand shoulder to shoulder to tell them to stop their plan to downsize or close small community hospitals, and instead to fund hospitals appropriately to allow their nctioning. The people of this community and the people of Ontario deserve this from their elected officials. --
Shirley Roebuck, RN Port Lambton
Article ID# 2679406
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Walpole gets new health care centre
The Daily News
Chatham-Kent Community Health Centres are opening a new site on Walpole Island in August.
The opening is a result of a partnership with the Walpole Island Health Centre.
The addition of new staff operating at the site will provide residents of the First Nation with increased access to quality primary health care, health promotion and disease prevention programs.
"This is the start of what will be a very effective partnership,'' said Kristen Williams, executive director of the centres.
She said that as the Walpole Island site develops, programs and services will expand further through increased collaborations with other agencies and organizations serving the community.
Like Ontario's 74 other community health centres, Chatham-Kent Community Health Centres are community governed and community driven.
The Walpole Island community was consulted in creating the new site and several meetings with band officials and community healthcare stakeholders provided feedback on the specific health care needs of the community.
bboughner@chathamdailynews.ca.
Article ID# 2678989
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MINISTRY DETERMINED TO FIND CEE SOLUTION
Sir:Like all Ontarians, families in Petrolia deserve access to high quality health care when they need it, as close to home as possible. We are always working hard to make this possible.
My Ministry is working closely with the Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), Bluewater Health and the community to address the challenges faced at Charlotte Eleanor Englehart Hospital. We are determined to find a solution that focuses on the needs in the community.
Our government has made access to primary health care services a priority. We have increased the number of practicing physicians in Ontario by over 2,300. That includes almost 100 new doctors right here in the Erie St. Clair area, meaning that more than 11,000 people who didn't have a family doctor, now have one.
We are doing more to help Bluewater Health serve its patients and we are going further to make sure families can rely on it for the local care they need.
Last week my ministry approved Charlotte Eleanor Englehart Hospital for the Emergency Department Coverage Demonstration Project to help cover shifts if they face emergency scheduling issues. We've also let the hospital know about our Emergency Department Recruitment and Mentorship programs, which provide financial incentives of up to $75,000 for recruiting new doctors to the community.
Moving forward, the Erie St. Clair LHIN will be reviewing Bluewater Health's proposal over the next 30 to 60 days. The LHIN has also informed the hospital that they need to engage the community on their plan.
We will continue to work with everyone involved to ensure that residents of Petrolia have access to the high quality health care they deserve, both now and in the future.
-- Deb Matthews Minister of Health and Long- Term Care
Article ID# 2678159
Dear Citizens:
With the recent news that Petrolia’s Emergency Room may be closed, through the night, the Save Our Sydenham Committee is very disappointed that this is being allowed to happen and we remain very concerned about our own ER in SDH (we have Health Force supporting us in Wallaceburg but this may not be a long term solution). A few thoughts.
Doctor shortages are rampant throughout Ontario Hospitals and even more so in rural communities such as Petrolia and Wallaceburg. This is an issue that falls squarely on the shoulders of the provincial government (who by the way recently changed the rules so that our area is no longer classified as under serviced even though it is) and the recruitment efforts of the CKHA. At the recent annual general meeting the CKHA admitted that while they have recruited doctors to CKHA not a single doctor has been recruited to SDH. This, in spite of the fact, that several months ago a local Wallaceburg business family brought forth a doctor candidate interested in working at SDH. Guess what, the CKHA was slow to act and she has accepted a job in Leamington.
Closing an ER for any period of time is very serious. Do you or your child want to be lucky or unlucky depending on the time of day or night when your life threatening incident happens?
The SOS worked very closely with the members of the SDH Corporation (many SOS members are also SDH Corp members) in order to call the special members meeting on July 20th. Having a SDH Board that will work with all of the stakeholder groups is an important step.
The Rural and Northern Health Care Panel report is done but the provincial government is behind on their review and release of the report. Your SOS remains ready, fully funded and vigilant as we await this report. The impact it may have or not have on our SDH is unknown until the report is released.
The newly elected SDH Board and the CKHA need to get more involved in addressing the issue of doctor shortages and routine maintenance at SDH( a better kept hospital is one key to attracting doctors). The community will support and work with you but you have to show some initiative.
Finally, on behalf of SOS and the entire community I want to thank all of the nurses, doctors and medical staff working at SDH and servicing the area communities for your dedication, compassion and support for all of us. The fight to save our ER and move towards a more fully functional hospital for Wallaceburg and area would not be possible without you.
Thank You,
Jeff Wesley
Chairperson
Save Our Sydenham Committee
__________________________________________________________________________________
Letter: ER cuts in Petrolia, Wallaceburg still 24/7
I am writing about the night time closure of the CEE Emergency department and the impact of that closure on our community. This downsizing is similar to what the HAY report recommended. The Erie-St. Clair LHIN assured Petrolia that their ER would not be touched for 5 years; now they say that Bluewater Health’s plan to deal with MD shortages is not acceptable.
To date, the Sydenham District Campus Emergency department continues to operate 24 hours per day. It is true that Health Force Ontario physicians account for a small part of the MD coverage of the department, but in reality it is the continued efforts of Dr. R. Mayo, and Dr. D. Atoe that have ensured that our Emergency department is properly staffed by physicians.
The doctor recruitment efforts of the Chatham Kent Health Alliance have only resulted in new physicians for the Chatham and Tilbury area.
Although Dalton McGuinty’s LHIN’s are talking about better access to health care through Urgent Care Units, Family Health Teams and specialty clinics, access to health care is still needed after clinics are closed. Access to local Emergency care is needed 24 hours a day.
It is unacceptable to have allowed the Petrolia Emergency to be downsized, and it is just as unacceptable to have the same, even be considered, here in Wallaceburg. This community will not tolerate such action. Responsibility lies with the Chatham Kent Health Alliance to aggressively recruit doctors for both Chatham and Wallaceburg, and responsibility lies with the Erie St. Clair LHIN to support and fund CKHA’s efforts appropriately.
We should not forget the responsibility of our MPP’s and Dalton McGuinty. The voters stand shoulder to shoulder to tell them to stop their plan to downsize or close small community hospitals, and instead to fund hospitals appropriately to allow their continued functioning.
The people of this community and the people of Ontario deserve this from their elected officials.
Shirley Roebuck, Reg. N.
Port Lambton, ON
_____________________________________________________________________________
Posted By ROD HILTS Sarnia Observer
The Ministry of Health and Longterm Care's amendments that could prohibit doctors on hospital boards from voting on key financial decisions is a step backwards for health care in this province.
In a story Monday in The Observer, the new president of the Professional Staff Association at Bluewater Health spoke out against the impending changes. Dr. Alvaro Ramirez says beginning in January doctors on the hospital board will not have a say on important financial decisions impacting patient care.
Ramirez says Ontario is determined to run health care facilities like a business instead of putting patient care first.
It's a scary scenario that makes no sense since doctors are bringing critical clinical information to the table. This information is a valuable tool in helping all board member's make decisions and, in turn, the doctors should be able to vote with the knowledge they bring to the discussion.
Ramirez is fearful that if the government continues with the economics-based decision-making, expensive initiatives that are beneficial to the patient may not get approved.
Ramirez hopes amendments can still be made in September when the government has scheduled a round of meetings with the Ontario Medical Association and the Ontario Hospital Association.
The chair of Bluewater Health's board is supportive of doctors retaining voting rights. Bruce Davies told The Observer it's ironic that Bluewater Health completed an internal governance review that concluded the hospital CEO should be granted voting rights for the first time. Now, as Davies puts it, the ministry is going the other way.
With three doctors sitting on Bluewater's board, it would be an injustice if they were denied full voting rights. Their years of medical experience and expertise has earned them that.
When the front-line of our medical system do not get a voice at the table, then there are serious problems with the bureaucratic system that's in place. We can only hope the doctors' collective voices will be heard during the meetings in September and their vote will still be welcomed next year.
Sir: Members of Charlotte's Task Force for Rural Health are very concerned by news that there is a threat to the emergency services at CEE Hospital. Unfortunately, our doctors are overworked and can no longer cover all emergency shifts while maintaining their busy family practices.
Our doctors have long committed to serving the community of rural Lambton County and we believe the community, in return, will rally around them. We must continue to actively support the ongoing recruitment efforts of our doctors, the CEEH Foundation and Mayor McCharles who have been working together to find additional physicians for our community.
There are solutions other than closure and we are asking the Erie St. Clair LHIN, Bluewater Health and the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care to work with our doctors and our community to find those solutions. Closure is a problem, not a solution.
Like all rural Lambton residents, the Task Force took the Erie St. Clair LHIN (ESCL) and Bluewater Health (BWH) administrators at their word. In February 2009, those administrators gave rural Lambton residents an assurance of five years of ergency service at CEE Hospital. As part of the tripartite agreement, which included family physicians based in Petrolia, both the ESCL and BWH have a stated responsibility to work collaboratively with Petrolia's physicians to find solutions to problems facing CEE Hospital.
Finally, to those who may not understand: An overnight emergency service is crucial to rural Lambton. Any cutback of emergency service will deny critical care access to rural residents and deny residents the opportunity to be resuscitated, stabilized, admitted or transferred for advanced care. Charlotte's Task Force believes that rural residents have a right to that critical care just as people in Sarnia, Windsor and Chatham do.
Charlotte's Task Force has tentatively scheduled a town hall meeting for Monday, July 26, at 7 p.m., the venue to be confirmed. Once again, rural Lambton residents may have to come together to fight the urban-centric mentality that does not have the will to understand the extraordinary needs of our rural community.
-- Rosanne Orcut Charlotte's Task Force For Rural Health
Article ID# 2665862
Doc incentives not needed, say MPPs
| About 4 months ago |
ERICA BAJER
The Daily News
Local MPPs are confident Chatham-Kent can attract family doctors without the provincial incentives it has relied on in recent years.
Until last week, the municipality was eligible for up to $55,000 in provincial funding for incentives and tuition to attract physicians. However, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care revamped its underserviced area program and Chatham-Kent no longer qualifies.
It isn't rural enough.
"We've been very successful in Chatham-Kent with our family health teams . . . more doctors are coming to the area under that model," said Chatham-Kent Essex MPP Pat Hoy.
"We have put some of our government resources into other ways of attracting doctors to Chatham-Kent. The recent and ongoing success will be proof that what we're doing is a modern way of attracting doctors."
Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP Maria Van Bommel also praised family health teams — an approach to primary health care that brings together different providers to co-ordinate care and often consist of doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners and other healthcare professionals. She said the teams are very attractive to family doctors and seem to be the wave of the future when it comes to delivering primary health care.
"The doctors can spend their time with the most seriously ill," she said.
Hoy and Van Bommel said the new underserviced area program is aimed at rural and northern communities, places it was originally set up to support.
"This underserviced area (program) was an old model . . . it was badly flawed," Hoy said.
In an interview Monday, Frances Roesch, Chatham-Kent Health Alliance's director of medical affairs and recruitment, said all of the family physicians recruited in recent years have benefited from incentives through the underserviced area program.
"We are still the most underserviced area in the province," she said, noting we are short an estimated 30 family doctors. "It (new program aimed at rural areas) doesn't look at the actual physician shortage in individual communities."
Roesch said access to the funds is a major loss for the municipality in its efforts to get more doctors. Why aren't people listening?
"It's very frustrating."
Hoy and Van Bommel said the health ministry's new program for international doctors will benefit Chatham-Kent as the municipality will be able to offer incentives in exchange for service commitments.
As well, they said the healthcare connect program is helping to link patients with primary-care providers.
Both MPPs said they are confident the local community has everything it needs to be competitive and attract doctors. Ya right for Chatham but how about Wallaceburg?
"It's not as if Chatham-Kent won't be able to recruit, it's just the way we are doing it has changed," Van Bommel said.
Article ID# 2483630
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Posted By DAVID GOUGH, QMI AGENCY
Unlike the hospital in Petrolia, the Wallaceburg hospital emergency room is in no danger of reducing hours due to a lack of physicians, says a local hospital advocate.
The board of directors at the Charlotte Eleanor Englehart Hospital made the decision to close the ER of the Petrolia hospital from 8 p.m. until 8 a.m. beginning Sept. 29. The board made the decision because the community's doctors said they are no longer able to staff a 24-hour department.
Save Our Sydenham's Conrad Noel said the Sydenham campus of the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is able to staff the ER due to the services of Health Force Ontario.
A government agency , Health Force Ontario helps the emergency department in Wallaceburg with temporary staffing solutions by covering gaps in shifts to keep the ER running 24 hours.
"With the Health Force, the compliment of ER doctors is sufficient," Noel said. He added that the Petrolia hospital doesn't use the services of Health Force Ontario.
Noel said the situation in Petrolia with the lack of doctors has been known for months.
"Why wait until now to announce that they are going to close it?" Noel asks.
Recruitment of doctors to Wallaceburg will be one of the items on the agenda of a special meeting called for the membership of the Sydenham District Hospital that will be held on July 20 at the Oaks Inn, Noel said.
The meeting will go from 4:30- 6:30 p.m.
Noel said that there is a CKHA committee recruiting physicians, but they have not recruited any family physicians to Wallaceburg.
"I think that has to be a major issue now," Noel said. "I think we have to open our eyes and get moving on doing something for recruitment of family physicians in Wallaceburg. It has to be a priority for all of us, SOS, CKHA, the directors of the CKHA board. It's crucial right now."
Sarnia-Lambton MPP Bob Bailey said that all rural hospitals have to be very aware due to the shortage of doctors willing to work long hours.
Bailey said he is not willing to accept the fact the hospital in Petrolia will reduce hours.
"I am willing to work with the hospital, the doctors and the local community to try and prevent this," Bailey said.
He said he will also look into getting help from Health Force Ontario for the Petrolia hospital.
"If they are doing that in Wallaceburg, why wouldn't they do that in Petrolia?"
The Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network, said in press release, it doesn't support the proposal to cut in half the hours of the Petrolia ER.
The LHIN will require 30-60 days to review the proposal in order to consider the impact the change will have on the quality and access to care required for the patients who use the Petrolia ER. The LHIN also has to review the long-term sustainability of the proposed cut in ER hours.
The Ministry of Health will also need to be consulted on the proposed reduction of hours, the LHIN said in the release.
The situation in Petrolia is not unique, as all seven hospitals in the Erie-St. Clair LHIN is short physician coverage in the ER.
In February of 2009, LHIN CEO Gary Switzer announced a five-year agreement ensuring the ER at the CEE Hospital would not be downgraded to an urgent care centre.
A community outcry in Petrolia to stop the cuts resulted in the LHIN's five-year commitment to keep the status quo.
In May of 2009, CKHA requested a five-year planning window during which time the emergency departments would remain open at both Chatham and Wallaceburg, similar to a five-year window that the hospital in Petrolia received.
The five-year pledge was turned down by the LHIN due to the Rural and Northern Health panel study being done by the province.
Article ID# 2660862
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Doc shortage could strip town of its 24-hour emergency care
Posted By ROD HILTS
Nothing will unite a community faster than a threat to its health care system.
That being said, expect Petrolia residents to circle the wagons again and stand up for a proposed reduction in emergency room services.
But this time, the enemy is a doctor shortage which is handicapping efforts to staff the town's ER.
The issue came to light Wednesday when it was announced that Petrolia doesn't have enough general practitioners to keep the emergency department at CEE Hospital open 24 hours a day. Bluewater Health Board of Directors decided Wednesday to close the ER from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. daily beginning Sept. 29.
Understandably, Petrolia's general practitioners want to maintain a 24-hour emergency department but are taxed to the limit. According to the town's mayor, there are only about four doctors available to answer calls to the emergency department. Clearly, no one can expect four doctors to carry the weight of a hospital's emergency department.
Mayor John McCharles and Lambton County Warden Jim Burns say the only way the hospital can keep the ER open is to recruit new doctors to the town. That could be a solution that is easier said than done. Communities across the province are battling each other in their efforts to recruit doctors. A change in the government's recruiting incentive program has given the advantage to the far north and other rural communities that do not have the same proximity to medical services as are found in Lambton County. Money talks in the recruiting game and this area is no longer eligible for the province's cash lures.
The county has called a special meeting for Tuesday and have invited Bluewater Health CEO Sue Denomy and Petrolia's Dr. John Butler to attend and answer questions. But the problem remains, where can Petrolia find new doctors?
This community still has the 2009 debate about emergency services fresh on its mind. In February of that year, LHIN CEO Gary Switzer announced a five-year agreement ensuring the Petrolia ER would not be downgraded to an urgent care centre. It took a ground-swelling of public protest to help buy this ER some time. But unless some miraculous recruitment efforts bring new doctors to town or Bluewater Health can divert resources to Petrolia, the hospital may be forced to accept its new role as an urgent care centre.
-- Rod Hilts rhilts@theobserver.ca
Article ID# 2661540
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
BLUEWATER HEALTH NEEDS TO STAFF PETROLIA'S ER
Sir: Bluewater Health has announced its intention to close CEE's Emergency Department between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. because there aren't enough doctors to cover the need.
Since it has been driven home that CEE is amalgamated with Bluewater Health in Sarnia, isn't it up to Bluewater Health's management to staff CEE's Emergency?
A couple of years ago, Gary Switzer guaranteed the people of Sarnia and Lambton County that CEE's Emergency would not be closed for five years. I was suspicious of his words because neither he nor any of the LHIN staff would put it in writing.
It is so tiresome to see these people try to con the people of Lambton County. Everybody knows the LHIN is a front for Dalton's Liberals in their plot to turn public (government) services over to greedy private interests. They play these cute games like not allowing a hospital to run a deficit while underfunding it. How long will it be before U.S. citizens have better public heathcare than we do?
What can we do about it? NDP next election -the party that brought us public medicare in the first place. Uncontrolled capitalism gave us the current recession and, every five to 10 years another one or a depression.
-- Bob Scott
Petrolia
Posted By CATHY DOBSON, THE OBSERVER
Bluewater Health's decision to shut down Petrolia's emergency department at night will be reviewed quickly and every attempt will be made to resolve a critical physician shortage, says Gary Switzer, CEO of the Erie- St. Clair LHIN (Local Health Integration Network).
"It's not fair to the community to take this down to the wire. We will see if anything can be done as soon as possible," he told The Observer Thursday.
Bluewater Health's board of directors endorsed a proposal Wednesday from ER doctors at Charlotte Eleanor Englehart (CEE) Hospital to close the department from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. nightly starting Sept. 29.
The town's seven physicians who work in the ER say they are stretched to the limit and can no longer sustain the heavy burden of long shifts and daily office hours, according to a statement released Thursday by Bluewater Health.
But the hospital can't decide unilaterally to make substantial changes to its emergency services and must have approval from the LHIN.
The LHIN doesn't support the doctors' proposal and is taking 30 to 60 days to review it, Switzer said.
"We have to look at quality of care and ensure it's maintained. We have to look at access and safety, plus long-term sustain-ability," he said.
The LHIN must consider how reduced ER hours in Petrolia will impact residents and the surrounding region, said Switzer.
His staff will work with the Ministry of Health and Longterm Care to come up with a workable strategy to keep the ER operating 24/7. Other small hospitals such as Sydenham District Hospital in Wallaceburg are provided with interim ER doctors through the government agency Health Force Ontario.
Bluewater Health has submitted a proposal to Health Force Ontario to bolster physician numbers in Petrolia but has not received approval. It's time for the LHIN to get involved with those negotiations, Switzer said.
"(The physicians) have done a great job in the past and they've done a great job recruiting in the past. Now they're realizing they just can't recruit so something has to be done," Switzer said.
ER doctor recruitment in Petrolia has proven difficult, despite exhaustive efforts by Dr. John Butler and the CEE Foundation, said Bluewater Health CEO Sue Denomy. Butler has worked tirelessly with town council, the mayor and hospital administration to attract new physicians, she said.
Student physicians were brought in for town tours this year but none chose to locate in Petrolia.
"Not all physicians want a rural, multi-dimensional practice and many don't want to work in emerg," Denomy said. "The younger and newer grads want to have a personal life. They don't want to be on call."
Denomy said Bluewater Health does not want to limit hours at CEE's emergency.
"This is not easy for us," she said. "It's definitely not where we wanted to go but the reality is we're here."
When two doctors left Petrolia last year, ER coverage "limped along" with seven remaining ones, she said. "And now a senior physician has indicated he wants to stop emergency shifts. A crisis was tripped."
Bluewater Health was criticized by the Sarnia-Lambton Health Coalition this week for failing to respond to rumours about ER cutbacks.
It was Petrolia Mayor John McCharles who fielded media questions when the news broke Wednesday.
A publicly-funded hospital should not make critical decisions that impact the community behind closed doors and without explanation, said coalition president Arlene Patterson.
Denomy defended the hospital's 24 hours of silence, saying hospital staff had to be informed first and discussions were initiated with the LHIN.
cdobson@theobserver.ca
Article ID# 2661537
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Posted By By Cathy Dobson
Members of the Sarnia Lambton Health Coalition say Bluewater Health has been strangely quiet about Wednesday's revelation that the ER at CEE Hospital in Petrolia will shut down every night starting in September.
"The hospital uses public dollars but the doors are locked on communication," said coalition president Arlene Patterson today.
The community is demanding answers as to why there aren't enough doctors to man the emergency department and keep it running 24 hours a day, she said.
On Wednesday, Petrolia Mayor John McCharles said the hospital's board of directors had accepted a recommendation from the doctors to shut down the ER from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. daily starting Sept. 29.
Hospital administration has yet to comment or make a formal announcement. Board chairman Bruce Davies confirmed to The Observer that the board supported the doctor's recommendation because of the human resources shortage in Petrolia.
"The board doesn't like the proposal either but there are some realities that aren't easily solved," he said.
But coalition members want to know more from Bluewater Health, particularly what measures have been taken to attract new physicians.
"We've got a corporation making a decision that impacts on the public, yet we hear nothing from it," Patterson said. "Is John McCharles the hospital's new spokesperson?"
"The public needs to hear what's going on," said Helen Havlik, vice-president of the coalition and a town councillor.
"There's been no public statement from the hospital. Who is in charge? Providing manpower for a hospital is the duty of Bluewater Health, the LHIN (Local Health Integration Network) and the Ministry of Health," Havlik said.
"We want accountability."
A spokesperson for the Erie-St. Clair LHIN has indicated that a formal statement will come from that office this afternoon.
However, repeated phone calls to Bluewater Health have gone unanswered today.
Article ID# 2660194
________________________________________________________________________________
Posted By JACK POIRIER
The date was February 24, 2009. Hundreds of people packed Victoria Playhouse in Petrolia to cry out against a plan to reduce emergency department hours at Charlotte Eleanor Englehart Hospital.
A group of six Petrolia doctors threatened resignation if Bluewater Health, under direction from the Erie- St. Clair LHIN, forged ahead with a proposal to turn the department into an urgent care centre.
The community backlash was swift and harsh.
The bureaucrats eventually backed down, the LHIN announcing it had come to an agreement with the doctors to maintain service at the emergency department.
As LHIN CEO Gary Switzer put it, the Petrolia ER would become a model for small emergency rooms in Ontario.
Fast forward to July 7, 2010, and it's deja vu all over again.
That "model" has collapsed with revelations there aren't enough staff at CEE to maintain 24/7 service in the emergency department. So, Bluewater Health holds a special session of its board of directors on Wednesday, with no public notice.
They decide behind closed doors to shut the Petrolia ER from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. beginning this fall. No formal announcement was made to the public.
Mr. Switzer tells The Observer the staffing shortages have long been known, and it's up to Bluewater Health to develop a contingency plan.
He says they've long anticipated a shortage.
So it begs the question: If this has been known for months what's been done to address it?
Switzer said that's up to hospital administration to address. But repeated calls throughout the day to get comment from Bluewater Health administrators prove fruitless.
Bluewater Health CEO Sue Denomy, who pulled in more than $300,000 from the public purse last year, was MIA all day.
Not even a released statement.
To his credit, Bluewater Health board chair Bruce Davies did respond to calls later in the day and confirmed staffing issues at CEE.
He said the board wants to work with the LHIN to find an agreeable solution, even though the board adopted a proposal to reduce ER hours this fall.
Switzer says he will not support the hospital's decision to reduce the hours of service at the ER department and the LHIN will begin it's own 30 to 60 day review.
So let the wrestling over public optics begin.
Meanwhile, the public waits for answers.
More may come today if top hospital administrators decide to comment.
One thing is certain, the public will not take any decision to reduced service lying down.
People love the CEE Hospital.
When my children have required emergency care in the past, my wife and I have thought nothing of driving our children to CEE, despite the fact we live in Sarnia.
As Arlene Patterson, chair of the Sarnia Health Coalition says, the last time this issue cropped up at CEE it "nearly incited riots in the streets."
People have a right to feel betrayed and have a right to demand answers from our local health officials, she said.
If history has taught us anything, unless people stand up and demand access to health care, you can expect cuts to the system.
Jack Poirier is a senior news editor at The Observer. Contact him at jpoirier@theobserver.ca.
Article ID# 2659429
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CATHY DOBSON
The Observer
Petrolia doesn't have enough general practitioners to keep the emergency department at CEE Hospital open 24 hours a day, community leaders say.
A decision was made by the hospital board of directors Wednesday to close the ER from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. daily, starting Sept. 29, said Petrolia Mayor John McCharles.
The board approved the resolution after the community's scant supply of doctors said they are unable to staff a 24-hour department, he said.
"I'm sure it's not an easy decision for (the doctors)."
Petrolia's general practitioners want to maintain a 24-hour emergency department but are taxed to the limit.
McCharles said after meeting with Dr. John Butler, a GP who fought in the past to keep the ER open, McCharles realized there are only about four doctors available in Petrolia who answer calls to the emergency department.
"With so few of them, they can be on call for 24 hours at a time and then have office duties after that," McCharles said. "The doctors say the can work 30 to 40 hours at a stretch.
"They just don't have a life and say their health is at stake. We need at least three or four more doctors to help with on-call shifts."
Petrolia had nine family doctors five years ago but has lost two and others don't accept on-call shifts, primarily because of advancing age, McCharles said.
"I empathize with the doctors but we don't want to give up 24-hour ER service. The answer is to recruit new doctors," the mayor said.
McCharles and Lambton County Warden Jim Burns said they want to ensure every effort is made to find new general practitioners and keep CEE's ER open around-the-clock.
"There's no point in having a restaurant open if there's no cooks," Burns said. "The fact is we don't have enough doctors. These people are not superhuman. Everyone burns out."
He has called a special meeting of county council for Tuesday and asked Bluewater Health CEO Sue Denomy and Dr. Butler to attend to answer questions.
"I hope to hear from Bluewater Health about what they've done to attract doctors to Petrolia. I want to know if every single possibility has been exhausted," Burns said. "I want to know if there's something the county can do to help attract doctors."
He said he's concerned that once CEE's emergency department limits its hours, reverting to 24-hour service will be difficult.
"Then the next step may be to shut it down on weekends and then gradually we end up in a situation where the LHIN (Erie-St. Clair Local Health Integration Network) wanted to go last year and just shut the whole (emergency) down.
"Frankly I don't think that's acceptable to this community," Burns said. "We need 24-hour service."
In February of 2009, LHIN CEO Gary Switzer announced a five-year agreement ensuring the ER at Charlotte Eleanor Englehart Hospital would not be downgraded to an urgent care centre.
Burns said Wednesday he is disturbed about any reduction in ER hours because it could lead to a downgrade despite the agreement.
"In the back of my mind I think maybe some of the LHIN board want reduced emergency service in Petrolia," he said. "This makes it very easy for them to do that. If you don't have the doctors, how can you keep the ER open?"
Burns said he understands few rural hospitals in Ontario have had to resort to reduced ER hours.
"I want to know why other communities are able to attract doctors to their emergency and we are not," he said.
McCharles said Petrolia council has discussed the decision to limit ER hours and intends to work on a strategy to recruit new doctors.
"If it's a matter of funding, maybe we join forces with the other communities around that are being serviced by CEE," he said
The mayor said town residents are accustomed to fighting cuts to their hospital.
Last year, a group of Petrolia physicians lead by Dr. Butler threatened to resign if a recommendation to reduce services at CEE's emergency wasn't scrapped.
A community outcry to stop the cuts resulted in the LHIN's five-year commitment to keep the status quo.
cdobson@theobserver.ca
Article ID# 2658557
___________________________________________________________________________
July 7
Not enough doctors to maintain current services: Switzer
OBSERVER STAFF
The emergency department at Bluewater Health's CEE Hospital in Petrolia will close at night.
Petrolia Mayor John McCharles said today hospital CEO Sue Denomy has confirmed the decision was made to reduce operating hours by closing the emergency department overnight between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m.
A closed door meeting held this morning by Bluewater Health's board of directors is expected to develop a plan to address staffing issues.
Gary Switzer, CEO of the Erie-St. Clair Local Health Integration Network told The Observer that there have been staffing issues at Petrolia's ER Department and that it's up to Bluewater Health to develop a backup plan.
"They're having a tough time maintaining staff," Switzer said.
"We anticipated there would be a shortage of physicians."
Hospitals were asked earlier in the year to develop contingency plans to address the foreseen issues, Switzer said.
Lambton County Warden Jim Burns said the community's been down this road before and have made it clear it won't accept cuts to emergency care.
"This community will do what needs to be done to ensure our emergency department services," Burns said.
The warden added that it's possible there aren't enough doctors currently that can continue staffing the emergency department at adequate levels.
Burns said the LHIN, Bluewater Health and local municipal leaders must find ways to ensure the hospital is adequately staffed.
In February 2009, Switzer announced a five-year agreement ensuring the ER at Charlotte Eleanor Englehart Hospital would not be downgraded to an urgent care centre.
The announcement came after months of threats, protests and petitions.
A group of Petrolia physicians had threatened to resign if the recommendation to reduce services at the ER wasn't scrapped.
At the time, LHIN officials said Petrolia's ER would be used as a model for small emergency rooms across the province, with potential for increased funding to fix health and safety issues revealed in a study by Hay Group consultants.
Switzer said then that the agreement would help to create a strategic plan to expand services at the hospital emergency room over the next five years.
Whatever contingency plan is created it should not include service disruptions in the ER department, said Sarnia Health Coalition's Arlene Patterson.
The last time this issue cropped up it "nearly incited riots in the streets," Patterson said.
"People are feeling betrayed," she said. "People have to demand access to health care. If people don't stand up and demand this they will close it."
There are avenues to investigate to help attract more health care workers if staffing is the issue, Patterson added.
Health Force Ontario, a recruiting arm of the provincial Ministry of Health, as well as a private company known as Med-Emerg, have historically helped communities to recruit new physicians and other health care workers, she said.
Article ID# 2657821
_______________________________________________________________________________
OBSERVER STAFF
Bluewater Health officials are rumoured to be meeting this morning to discuss potential service cuts to the emergency department at Petrolia's CEE Hospital.
Lambton County Warden Jim Burns says he's been told that the special session will address whether to close the ER department overnight, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Bluewater Health officials have confirmed the meeting but not specifics.
Burns said this community's been down this road before and have made it clear it won't accept cuts to emergency care.
"This community will do what needs to be done to ensure our emergency department services," Burns said.
The warden added that it is possible there aren't enough doctors currently that can continue staffing the emergency department at adequate levels.
Burns said that the Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network, Bluewater Health and local municipal leaders must find ways to ensure the hospital is adequately staffed.
In February 2009, LHIN CEO Gary Switzer announced a five-year agreement ensuring the ER at Charlotte Eleanor Englehart Hospital would not be downgraded to an urgent care centre.
The announcement came after months of threats, protests and petitions. in a victor
A group of Petrolia physicians had threatened to resign if the recommendation to reduce services at the ER wasn't scrapped.
At the time, LHIN officials said Petrolia's ER would be used as a model for small emergency rooms across the province, with potential for increased funding to fix health and safety issues revealed in a study by Hay Group consultants.
Switzer said the agreement would help to create a strategic plan to expand services at the hospital emergency room over the next five years.
Article ID# 2657821
_______________________________________________________________________________
July 2
____________________________________________________________________________________Hello Conrad.
Just thought I would give you my thoughts on how the meeting went.
I still have the feeling that it is very much us and them.
If our group had not been prepared for their negativity, by that I mean,
not accepting new business, did not want dialogue on the SDH finances etc.
We would have come away no further ahead.Jeff, Sheldon, and Ann did a superb job of preparing for this.
I do not like the way our board behaves towards the members who elected
them. They seem to be very much controlled by the CKHA. All they want to
do is explain the rules of governance, which I believe is drummed into them
by the CKHA, and thus try to suppress any form of discussion from the floor.It is good to see a new CEO and we will see if that is a good thing or not.
If I were him I would have felt quite embarrassed at the meeting to hear a voluntary
group offer to raise the funds to repair the gazebo, at SDH, and also ask for
permission to get the repairs done.We are a long way from seeing anything positive coming our way but we
must keep the energy level high and then I believe we will get there in the end.
Thanks again to you and all the folks at SOS for your hard work and dedication.Ray Pickering.
______________________________________________________________________
Conrad`s Editorial CommentsThanks Ray for your comments. I hope that many more of our members will express their opinions as well as you did.
July 1
Special hospital meeting called for July 20
New CEO will be there to address SDH members
Courier Press staff
As requested at the annual general meeting of the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance last month, a special meeting as been called for the membership of the Sydenham District Hospital.
The special meeting will by held on July 20 at the Oaks Inn.
The meeting will go from 4:30-6:30 p.m.
Topics at the meeting include a discussion with the board on establishing a maintenance fund where CKHA contributes an amount based on the value of membership fees raised in addition to volunteer labour and additional donations (money and goods) from the members.
One project that has been mentioned by SDH members is improvements to the gazebo that sits on the front lawn of the Wallaceburg hospital.
Other topics on the agenda of the special meeting include; discussion on suggested by-law amendments, questions relating to the financial reports and operations of SDH and a report on capital/facilities investment at the SDH.
The meeting will be one of the first duties of new CKHA CEO and president Colin Patey. Patey begins his duties with the CKHA on July 19.
Article ID# 2650189
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Posted By Daily News Staff
Recommendations related to emergency department services will not be made by the newly formed Primary Health Care Task Group.
During the committee's first meeting last Thursday, the group decided that the scope of its work wouldn't include ED recommendations, the Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network said in a news release on Canada Day.
"This advisory committee will not be studying or recommending on any aspect of the various EDs in the ESC LHIN. Rather we will be looking to find ways to provide equitable timely access to all our populations. Our recommendations to the LHIN board will always be patient focussed," said chair Dr. Glenn Bartlett, in a news release.
Officials with the ESCLHIN couldn't be reached for comment on Canada Day.
It is expected that the group will lead a county-by-county review of the current state of primary health care in the region and submit prioritized recommendations to the ESCLHIN board of directors for improvements, the press release stated.
The three primary goals outlined for the group at the recent meeting include:
• Increased availability of primary health care options
• Greater equity of service
• Improved health outcomes.
The next meeting is scheduled for July 21 at the ESCLHIN. All meetings are open to the public.
_______________________________________________________________________________
June 30
Nick Brownlee (Mrs)
Senior Executive Assistant & Governance Co-Ordinator
Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, PO Box 2030
Chatham, ON N7M 5L9
Tel: 519-437-6001 Fax: 519-436-2522
nbrownlee@ckha.on.ca
http://www.ckha.on.ca
will be held on
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
at the Oaks Inn, St. Clair South Hall
Wallaceburg, ON
4:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m
.For the purpose of -
1. Discussion with the Board on establishing a maintenance fund/plan where CKHA contributes an amount based on the value of membership fees raised in addition to volunteer labour and additional donations (money and goods) from the Members.
2. Discussion on suggested by-law amendments.
3. Questions relating to the financial reports for SDH.
4. Questions relating to the operations of SDH, and
5. A report on capital / facilities investment at the SDH.
Kindly confirm your attendance at 437-6001 or by e-mail to nbrownlee@ckha.on.ca no later than July 16th to enable appropriate seating arrangements
News Release
New Volunteers Join CKHA Boards of Directors
CHATHAM-KENT -- At the June 24th Annual General Meetings of Sydenham District, Public General and St. Joseph’s Hospitals, volunteer Boards were appointed as follows.
Sydenham District Hospital
Gary Martin, Leah McArthur (Chair), Brian Slack, Randy Smith, Ron Tack, Paul Weese (Vice-Chair), and Wendy Weston (Treasurer).
St. Joseph’s Hospital
Monica Bacic, Carolynn Barko, Mark Isherwood (Vice-Chair), Fr. Michael Michon, Gail Rumble (Treasurer), Jennifer Wilson, and Jon Wood (Chair).
Public General Hospital
Gail Baldwin (Treasurer), Mike Grant, Jane Havens, Jim Laforet (Vice-Chair), Brenda Richardson, Robert Ryan, and Wayne Schnabel (Chair)
The following individuals were appointed as Community Representatives to a Tri-Board Committee: Liz Brown, Angela Corso, Dan Donaldson, George Duquette, Ron Fleming, Kurtina Hammerlein, Victor Lu, Dr. Michael McLauchlin, Liz Meidlinger, Erik Mitchell, Martin VanBommel, and Judy VanderPol
The following are members of the Tri-Board in an ex-officio capacity by virtue of their offices: Dr. Gary Tithecott, Chief of Medical Staff; Dr. Wally Pakulis, President of Medical Staff, Dr. Dennis Atoe, Vice-President of Medical Staff and Colin Patey, President and CEO.
Patey was announced earlier in the week as the newly appointed President and CEO for Chatham-Kent Health Alliance and was in attendance at the meeting.
The three hospital Boards function as a Tri-Board -- focusing on strategic planning, Mission, Vision and Values, quality and performance monitoring, financial and management oversight, risk identification and oversight, stakeholder communication and accountability, governance and legal compliance.