From Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare
On Wednesday, February 26, 2025, the Huntsville District Memorial Hospital (HDMH) site will experience a planned four-hour outage of the emergency backup power system. The outage is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. and end by midnight.
The shutdown is necessary to connect the under-construction MRI Suite to emergency backup power, an essential step in our exciting journey for Muskoka and the area’s first MRI in the region.
During the four-hour outage, there will be no scheduled surgical procedures or ambulatory or outpatient tests, clinics, or treatments at HDMH. Where it is safe to do so, ambulances will bypass the Huntsville Emergency Department, which will have limited capability and will be available for emergent care only. The South Muskoka Memorial Hospital (SMMH) Site in Bracebridge will be used for obstetrical deliveries on February 26. Increased traffic is anticipated at the SMMH Site, and the appropriate preparations are being made to manage the volumes.
Extensive planning and communication is occurring to ensure the comfort and safety of our current patients and mitigate any risks. During the outage, our care teams will remain focused on providing safe, high-quality care to our patients.
“An outage of this magnitude has involved tremendous planning to address all of the impacts and mitigate potential risks to ensure everyone’s safety,” explains Cheryl Harrison, President & CEO. “Because much of the hospital’s critical equipment is connected to emergency backup power lines and will not function during the outage, we are urging as little traffic as possible at the HDMH Site during the outage window.”
MAHC appreciates the public’s understanding of this temporary change in service for an essential power upgrade.
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This is a perfect example of why it is better to have two distinct and separate small hospitals instead of one larger one. The redundancy costs a little more but in situations like this the value becomes apparent.
This situation was planned but it is easy to think of other “unplanned” events that could have a similar effect.
We need to keep this in mind for all our critical services as we go forward.
Luckily we have a hospital in Bracebridge to handle situations like this. Where would we be if MAHC’S original plan of a 14 bed clinic in Bracebridge were in place today? This just further proves that we need two hospitals. I know for a fact that Graydon Smith had a talk with the MAHC bord to make sure South Muskoka will have a hospital. So I am voting for Graydon. I don’t think anybody that is not a member of the party in power will have any influence over the MAHC board! That’s just the way politics work.