Medical Practitioners of Muskoka have asked business leaders in the community to lend their support in the drive to maintain full services at both Muskoka hospitals.
Brian Tapley, of Bondi Village Cottage Resort in Dwight, feels this issue isn’t getting enough attention and has penned this letter in support.
Please count my personal and my business (Bondi Village Cottage Resort) as fully in support of the concept of maintaining a full service hospital with an emergency department in Huntsville.
In addition to the points raised by the local healthcare providers, and not in any way trying to be obstructionist to the plans for improved efficiency of our health care systems, I would like to point out a few issues from my point of view, my location, and my business.
(A) It is not now, nor will it ever be possible, to operate a hospital, especially one that can deal with emergencies, on a basis like any other business. By their very nature “emergencies” happen in a totally unplanned way and are usually events with the need for extremely fast response times in order for the attempt at support to be effective.
For this reason there must always be “extra, unused capacity” sitting relatively idle at such a hospital. This includes ER space, staff, empty beds, waiting ambulances and so on. If these resources are all “used up” there is nothing left with which to respond to a new emergency.
This is inefficient, when viewed from a management point of view I grant you, but it is necessary to provide the support needed to help save lives in emergency situations.
This is a “cost” we must all dig in and prepare to help fund if we want to have “good and timely care” for people in our area during an emergency.
(B) Putting a new hospital on a new site has just got to be more expensive than either adding to the existing Huntsville hospital, or if the disruption of adding to the existing is simply too much for the officialdom to handle, there is a lot of property at the existing Huntsville site, already serviced and zoned for a hospital.
If the idea of a “health park” is more than just some official’s “lip service to the masses” then a second building at the existing site could be the start of just such a facility. Once the new building was commissioned, the old one could be renovated and both used to good purposes.
Remember, too, that a hospital is not an easy building to “re-purpose” as it is pretty specialized and expensively constructed so that abandoning the existing site will likely not gain much in the way of a monetary offset against the cost of the new building. Just a thought, but likely the old building will end up being torn down and this, to me, seems like a waste of a lot of technical construction. This existing hospital was built in the late 70s so it is only coming up on 50 years old now and that is not “old” for a substantially constructed building like this one. Bottom line… it works and I know this as I have had to visit it far too often for my liking during my lifetime!
(C ) While I realize that transportation has become more efficient over the years, it is still a bit of a stretch for us to go to Bracebridge (a little over an hour in good conditions) and it will most likely be a serious increase to risk to people in the Algonquin Park area (many thousands in summer!) and the areas to the immediate north of Huntsville.
The presence of family members is a proven factor that increases the successful recovery of patients and the increased difficulty of getting to a more distant (if even just a little so) hospital will make this task just that much more difficult for family members.
(D) While not extremely likely in our area, if there is some kind of disaster at our hospital, something like a terrorist event, a fire, major equipment malfunction or maybe an infectious disease, then with just one hospital we would be “out of business” and this is not good. With two hospitals, it is much more unlikely that both would be rendered unusable at the same time so that in such a situation, although it might not be convenient, we would be better off with two slightly smaller hospitals than one bigger one. Again, at a possibly slightly higher cost, which I think we just have to grin and pay for.
(E) As is now the case, regardless of the single- or two-site solution in Huntsville and Bracebridge, very serious or complex procedures are still going to be referred to centres of excellence in the particular field involved, as is now the case, so we shall not gain significantly with a slightly larger single hospital over the two current sites in this regard.
These are just a few points. I’m sure there are more and I’m also sure that the people of Bracebridge most likely feel the same way about their hospital.
Again, trying to get to the bottom line of this issue, I feel that the two-hospital solution is better in the long run than a single-site solution, especially as our area population increases.
Brian Tapley attended school at Port Cunnington, then Irwin Memorial in Dwight, then Huntsville High, and then Queen’s University, where he graduated 1973 as a Mechanical Engineer.
He worked for Kimberly-Clark for a short time before ‘retiring’ to help his aging parents run the family resort, Bondi Village Cottage Resort in Dwight.
Brian, who says he’s getting old, too, is joined at the resort by his son and his lovely wife, as they start to take over the reins.
“We have been here since my grandfather purchased the original farm in 1905 and I always add that we have managed this feat despite the best efforts of our various governments to help us out.”
EXCELLENT COMMENTS. Brian, very articulate and reasonable – to the point and spot on – certainly addresses the current and future needs of “both” communities. All other comments, so far, in this article, are very considered and most pragmatic = just need to keep the current political leaders and “funders” on track for the next few years to enable the best of both hospital worlds to evolve. Our family has been here at Dwight since 1935 and totally support Huntsville Hospital and feel secure in the knowledge that Bracebridge Hospital is a “back-up” –
Gary Magee M.D.
As a hospital administrator for over 40 years, I believe that our Governments need to focus on the key items. 1st the patient should always be the #1 focus, so facilities need to be close to the patients. #2: a hospital is nothing without its excellent doctors & nurses, so recruiting would be difficult without all that Huntsville offers. #3: Building one full service new hospital & a satellite one is not the answer, because management to direct caregiver ratios are excessive & efficiencies do not meet patient care needs. #4: With all that can be done as ambulatory and the automation of medical records, 2 state of the art ambulatory facilities with excellent emergency rooms, observation rooms, full surgery and cardiac intensive care rooms, with critical cases transported to the nearest facility after the patient is stabilized. I hope that our leaders consider alternatives which provide equal facilities in both communities. Also, consideration should be given to separate management of each facility with only minimal leadership over both facilities.
Brian Tapley is right, we do need two hospitals. Many seniors no longer drive and others, like myself many times in the last three years, have been taken to the hospital for emergency treatment. Some people tell us to move. We don’t have the money and there are many that are in our position, are old and family live out West. Donate what we can to keep it open.
Well said Brian. Like you, I have had to use our great hospital many times.