Listen Up! Council’s call for dismissal of hospital board the right thing to do

Hugh Mackenzie
Huntsville Doppler

A Bold but Necessary Step …

Huntsville Council took a very bold step last Monday in approving a motion calling for the dismissal of the Board of Directors of Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare (MAHC). It is my view that this could have been avoided, but after all was said and done it was the right thing to do.

There is a down side, of course. While many of the municipalities in East Parry Sound will likely support the Huntsville motion, Bracebridge Council will not. In fact, it would not surprise me if they passed a motion of confidence in the MAHC Board. Certainly, Bracebridge Mayor Graydon Smith has wasted no time in distancing himself from the position that Huntsville Council has taken. After all, it is a long shot that the Minister of Health will actually dismiss the MAHC Board and since MAHC will make the final recommendation about hospital care in Muskoka, Bracebridge appears to be on the side of the angels.

But not so fast. I watched closely last Monday night as Huntsville councillors gave Evelyn Brown, the Chair of MAHC, numerous opportunities to demonstrate in a tangible way that MAHC was serious about being fully open to an equal two-site option for acute healthcare services in Muskoka. In particular, she was asked more than once why she would not rescind the Board’s motion, that still remains on their books, that calls for a single-site hospital as their preferred model. She refused to do so, citing again that the Province wanted single-siting to remain as an option.

That is nonsense, of course. If the MAHC Board is really open to consider all options for hospital care, as they say they are, if they are now leaning toward a two-site model as their Task Force says they are, why will they not rescind the motion that states single-siting is their preferred model? By doing so, they would be giving equal weight to all options, including single-siting. That is all the Province is asking for. By refusing to do so, they leave a reasonable person with no choice but to wonder what the real agenda is.

It is my belief that if Evelyn Brown had really listened to what councillors were asking and agreed to ask her Board to rescind their preferred single-site motion, the outcome on the council vote to dismiss the MAHC Board might have been significantly different.

Over the years Huntsville, the largest municipality in Muskoka, has seen a number of services, especially public services, either diluted here or entirely moved to the southern end of the District. With the exception of MP Tony Clement, who lives in Port Sydney, there has not been a member of parliament or a member of the provincial legislature from North Muskoka in the last half century, nor has there been a District Chair from here in 40 years. That, in my view, puts a particularly heavy onus on our municipal council to protect the interests of Huntsville and when it comes to an acute-care hospital here, they have every reason to be wary.

At Monday’s Council meeting, Mayor Scott Aitchison said this.

“I am really quite fearful of the situation and I worry if we just keep talking………there is a part of me that thinks they (MAHC) are just doing it on purpose because they want us talking until they steal everything away.”

The Mayor and his Council have a right to be fearful. Consider just four things.

• MAHC refuses to rescind their motion declaring single-siting for hospital care as their preferred option.
• Phil Matthews, currently Vice Chair and soon to be Chair of MAHC told District Council when asking for up to $114 million, that it was “for a new facility, yet to be built”.
• The acting Chief of Staff for MAHC, who is also a Bracebridge surgeon, is on record as saying there should be only one door for surgery in Muskoka and that door should be Bracebridge.
• There is on the back burner a HIP document, that is said to recommend single-siting surgery in Bracebridge.

A word about the HIP document. I think it stands for Hospital Improvement Plan but it is a vehicle used by the Province to require hospitals to indicate how they will bring their operation into a balanced budget. A few years ago, MAHC was ordered to produce a HIP and in it they apparently recommended single-site surgery to Bracebridge. Eric Hoskins, who was Minister of Health at the time, listened to community concerns and the HIP was not enforced. A new Minister of Health has now instructed MAHC to revisit the HIP.

If MAHC were to now recommend the single-siting of surgery to Bracebridge, it would, in light of the recent Council motion, be seen to be simply punitive. You cannot have an effective acute-care hospital without surgery. There would be no question of two equally equipped, acute-care hospitals at that point.

It is no wonder then that Mayor Aitchison also said this last Monday night.

“I’m worried about single-siting services, brick by brick, by stealth, in the middle of the night.”

In passing the motion expressing a lack of confidence in the MAHC Board, Huntsville Council was serving notice that it is not convinced our municipality is playing on an even field. Given the elements referred to above, they have good reason to believe that. The last thing Huntsville needs is to wake up one morning and find out we have been duped. For that reason alone, and lacking the assurances they were seeking, it was important and appropriate that our mayor and council stood up for our community in the manner that they did last Monday night.

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