At Monday’s Council meeting, Huntsville Mayor Nancy Alcock provided an update on the Huntsville Hospital redevelopment issue. In summary, Mayor Alcock voiced her support for Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare’s position, outlined in their media release on February 23, 2024, “to reinforce its commitment to further consideration of the hospital redevelopment proposal.”
In her statement, Mayor Alcock made a clear commitment to council and Huntsville constituents to reaffirm her personal view for taking the time to get the right solution.
“We’ve all been talking about hospitals in Muskoka,” Alcock said. “Healthcare in our community matters to everybody and we’ve heard a lot of discussion throughout Muskoka and in fact up in Burk’s Falls as well, from many members of our community. And so, for that reason, I wanted to provide an update on the health care and redevelopment project, because I think there’s been a fair amount of movement, certainly in the last week. On Friday, Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare (MAHC) issued a news release and it captured a lot of the activity that’s been going on.”
Mayor Alcock continued, “They thanked everyone that participated in the dialogue and who provided suggestions and asked questions but they also reaffirmed that the board of directors has not approved a future model of care at this time and certainly won’t be approving at their March board meeting. At the moment their primary focus is to continue consultations with everybody: the stakeholders, the medical community—both South Muskoka and North Muskoka and to continue to work with them and listen. We also have another scheduled meeting—we, being the leaders from the community, the mayors from all the municipalities within the catchment area, as well as the municipalities in the north, who’ve asked them to take their time for reconsideration of the proposal that was shared with the community.”
Alcock said it’s important that they’ve committed to take the time to engage the community. “But I think that the most important thing, going forward, they’ve also committed to provide a weekly update to the community on the status of the ongoing consultations. And I think, to me, that is the most important thing because we all heard that people in all of the communities felt a little bit surprised by what the proposed model was about and nobody likes surprises. So, I think ongoing there will be more information going out into the community and there will be more listening.”
Mayor Alcock also noted that there was an impression that there was more participation from South Muskoka than Huntsville. She said she wanted to confirm that she and Deputy Mayor Armour have been active at a “share table” for over a year in dynamic discussions; “that table was unbelievably successful at establishing a commitment of two hundred and twenty-five million dollars toward local share, and everybody was really pleased with how that came about but most importantly how we worked together and listened to each other to make that happen.” This work will continue into the future to ensure that “we are working collaboratively and that we will find the best possible model of care for everybody in our community,” added Alcock.
Councillor Monty Clouthier commented that he observed that in many of the meetings, citizens aged between 25 to 40 seemed to be missing in participation. The future resolution to Health Care in Muskoka will impact them even more so, he explained and expressed his disappointment that somehow this demographic is not being connected with. Mayor Alcock assured the council she would convey those concerns to the MAHC Board and summarized that the proposed weekly communications with the community from MAHC would address this.
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Alexandra Brown says
That age group is missing from the conversation because we are raising kids and don’t have the time or the childcare to attend the meetings.
Send out a survey or offer a form if you want to hear from us.
We have jobs during the day and bedtime etc routines in the evenings.
Brenda Begg says
To Alexandra Brown: I think that many people in this age group have 2 jobs!
I agree; the meetings need to be accessible to everyone. I don’t have a solution.
Verda-Jane Hudel says
Agree with the two comments above. Contact them as suggested. They do indeed care about the hospitals and health care.
There is a saying among health care professionals “time is of the essence” in other words time can not be wasted.