Letters to the Editor
OPEN LETTER TO THE RURAL AND NORTHERN HEALTH CARE PANEL
Nov. 27, 2009
Rural and Northern Health Care Panel
C/O Minister of Health and Long Term Care
80 Grosvenor St.
10th Floor, Hepburn Block
Toronto, ON
M7A 2C4
Dear Chairperson Fjeldsted and Panel Members:
The SOS Committee, on behalf of the users of Sydenham District Hospital and the affected communities, are writing to express our concerns about the process to be followed by the Rural and Northern Health Care Panel.
Specifically:
1. We are requesting that the Panel undertake cross-province public consultations, on the record, in communities affected by the cuts before the completion of your report and recommendations to the Minister. Ask yourself how you could possibly complete a report with recommendations without ever having set foot in our communities? If you want credibility you need to listen to our concerns before you complete your report and recommendations to the Minister.
2. It is imperative that the Panel undertake full and open public consultations in the affected communities. I can assure you that the users of Sydenham District Hospital want you to come to our communities and they will have lots of input for you.
3. Your report and recommendations must include a full review of all of the impacts (health, increased mortality, adverse impacts, and loss of jobs, payroll and economic development) of small and rural hospital cuts and closures on the affected communities.
Furthermore, there has been no proper legislative or public consultations process regarding the hospital cuts to date. The LHINs’ “public engagement” has been severely flawed as evidenced by what has become known locally as the “great flicker event.”
Our local hospital is vital for our local economy and for the well-being of our residents. It is perplexing that the provincial government has helped to fund a local community task force to find ways to create jobs, start up business and attract industry, yet, if we lose our local emergency department and hospital services they will have struck an irreparable blow to our future growth and development. How can a community that once boasted more industrial jobs per capita in all of Ontario regain some of that “boasting” with no emergency department to protect workers?
This area also boasts some of the finest agricultural lands and innovative farmers in all of Canada. Our farmers need a local emergency department to provide protection to farm workers and the many migrant workers who arrive here each growing season.
We are also very fortunate to have as our neighbours both St. Clair Township (borders the USA) and Walpole Island First Nation (their community members also helped fund and build Sydenham District Hospital) both of whom have very unique issues related to health care. Issues their capable leadership must be consulted on.
As you deliberate about rural and northern health care please keep in mind how you would feel if you lived in one of the affected communities and were faced with the prospect of no local emergency health care. How do you think my daughter and her five week old son feel about that possibility? Rural and northern communities deserve no less than large urban communities when it comes to health care – otherwise how will the rural and northern way of life survive?
From a financial point of view if you look at the recent spending scandals at eHealth, WSIB and others we are convinced that if the government stops these abuses this funding should be designated to maintain vital health care services in rural and northern communities – like Wallaceburg, Dresden, Walpole Island, Port Lambton and Sombra and in hospitals such as Sydenham District. The people of these communities made huge sacrifices to not only build but also to support this hospital (which by the way came into the CKHA debt free) and it should not be allowed to die a slow death just because of an inability of others to properly manage taxpayer’s money.
In terms of community support for our local hospital we have done nothing wrong but everything right and we should not be punished because of that.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to your timely response and your public consultation meeting in the community of Wallaceburg.
Sincerely,
Jeff Wesley, Chairperson, SOS Committee
1-519-627-5331
Cc: Chief Joseph Gilbert
Mayor Randy Hope
Mayor Steve Arnold
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