Good Evening Mayor & Councillors,
After watching the Township Finance Meeting today, I just had to make some comments.
It was certainly refreshing to witness some lengthy discussion regarding the proposed hospital(s) today by most of our township representatives, even though I disagreed with a lot that was stated.
How could anyone on Council say this hospital debate is “Outside our Township Jurisdiction and we should stay within our lane”. Do you realize that the Township you represent will be providing +/-40% of the District of Muskoka financial share toward this hospital. This should certainly be in our jurisdiction and in our lane, maybe the biggest cost item to our township ever.
Being represented well at all levels? and attending meetings with the various stakeholders and taking good notes is hardly what is required. The Township of Muskoka Lakes should be a leader in these debates and putting forward the “Right Answer” for a hospital, that would best look after the health needs for your constituents.
It is disappointing to hear now, with all the time that has elapsed concerning this issue;
- “As a Township it is outside our jurisdiction”
- “How do we participate”
- “What can we do”
- “No involvement”
No question, it will ultimately come down to a final decision made by the Minister of Health and Cabinet, but we can put our best foot forward to guide that decision; not just sit back and watch what Bracebridge & Huntsville put forward for their constituents.
For those, who don’t have a position on this, as they understand it not to be within their jurisdiction and want to stay within their lane; I will take this opportunity to give you “The Right Answer”; which is to build One Hospital in Bracebridge.
This is the most fiscally responsible option, located in the centre town of the three towns and the most central town to majority of the population of the Greater Muskoka Area. One Councillor today was promoting how little duplication of services was being offered through the two hospital model; that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Building one hospital eliminates all duplication and ongoing operational and maintenance costs where two facilities are involved.
Transportation costs and the resultant health hazards caused by patient transfers is just beyond logic.
Finally trying to staff the two hospitals today is a huge problem and it appears to be getting worse. No, new professionals are looking to work in/for a small operation anywhere; they are looking for the biggest and the best. Our best chance to attract more and specialized health professionals is, if we build One large state of the art hospital at $967M.
One large state of the art hospital is the “Right Answer” for all constituents in the Greater Muskoka Area(Huntsville, Lake of Bays, Bracebridge, Gravenhurst & Township of Muskoka Lakes).
I encourage you to be leaders on the most important issue of our times.
Regards,
Pat Moran
Muskoka Lakes
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Wendy Brown is right. We live north west of Sprucedale and we were unable to get a Dr since our new Dr left Burks Falls around 2011. We finally got a Dr in Parry Sound so we have to travel appropriately 112 km every time we need care. We need a hospital in Burks Falls for people in the area east and west of hwy 11 and south of North Bay.
My letter yesterday was placed with the others under that title as there was no other place to put it.
No I do not support one hospital. Muskoka needs two hospitals.
My point was and is how is the present Bracebridge hospital being staffed.
Personal care workers are being bused in from Toronto. At the same time experienced registered nurses are leaving to go to other hospitals. Personal care workers could be the ones and likely are the result of the free training program set up by Ford after Covid to assist R.N. not to replace them.
That saves the hospital money as the personal care workers are paid much less . They do not have equal education and experience etc.
Is it the government’s plan to eliminate registered nurses?
Does the government plan to replace our health care with private clinics?
Speak up and learn what really is going on?
One hospital is not the solution. Interesting though how MAHC’s original plan was to have a hospital in Huntsville and a clinic in Bracebridge. Kinda like a super big box store in Huntsville a convenience store in Bracebridge. Maybe what we need is a hospital in Bracebridge and a hospital in Burk’s Falls. That way people in Huntsville would have a choice of 2 hospitals to travel to and South Almaguin would be better off.
Also I know of one hospital between Bracebridge and Barrie. Where is the second? Also there was a hospital in Burks Falls that the MAHC board downgraded to a “wing” of the Huntsville hospital and eventually gave it to the Village of Burks Falls to operate as a health center. We need two hospitals with enough beds to limit travel for doctors and patients! This should be possible to do with a billion dollars. STOP THE TALKING AND BUILD TWO HOSPITALS.
Huntsville is the central location.
Mr. Moran evidently doesn’t know or care that MAHC serves Almaguin too.
Huntsville is also the regional stroke centre and has been for decades.
Pat Moran: The answer in my view is one hospital with two campuses as we have now, together offering the full range of state of the art hospital services with only critical duplication. Any economic study would show you that if Huntsville or Bracebridge lost their hospital it would result in a serious deterioration for that community. However, if you insist on a single hospital in Muskoka you might want to note that in addition to the Bracebridge site, there are two other hospitals between Bracebridge and Barrie. Between Huntsville and North Bay, there are no hospitals. That could be a problem for what you would like to see. We all need to be careful about what we wish for.
Hugh and Wendy make a lot of sense.
The 7 year debate is ridiculous however.
Elon Musk built an entire space launch rocket system in less time.
The Manhattan project of WW II took less time.
I always wonder, with one hospital, no matter how good or large, if some disaster befalls it, whether it be a fire or mechanical failure or an infection of some type, then you are left with “no hospital” whereas if you have two hospitals 30 miles apart there is always a good chance that one of them remains working.
Another factor with things like hospitals that we tend to forget is that they are not like Ford or GM, banging out cars on an assembly line where everything can be planned and controlled and the worst effect of a stoppage is some lost income or wages.
With hospitals and EMS services it is necessary to “be ready” for some disaster yet to happen, hopefully never to happen, but things do happen and there is a “cost” for this constant readiness and we really cannot cut costs all the way to the bone as we just never know and never will know when that major accident might happen. (this sentence is way to long sorry!)
Buses roll over, planes crash, industrial accidents can be big. We need to be ready for these and that need I think is better served by two distinct hospitals although I will grant those that disagree the fact that this will indeed cost a bit more than one hospital. There is more than bean counting at play here.
Interesting about the Bracebridge hospital. Personal care workers are being bused in from Toronto and a high positioned nurse along with others have left to go to the Orillia hospital and other hospitals. I remember the Ford government started after Covid a free training program to train personal care workers to basically assist registered nurses but not to replace them.
These workers work for much less which helps the Bracebridge hospital to make their books less in the red.
Now wondering about true care of the patients. Registered nurses leaving personal care workers replacing them. The two categories have different education.
The article says the staffing of the Bracebridge hospital is a model of good health care. Sounds like an experiment for the hospital to make more money rather than giving good health care.
I have not read anything about this in local news.
And where do we send the families that lose members due to an extra amount of travel time to Bracebridge? Its what 30 minutes to Orillia from Bracebridge, its almost 2 hours from Huntsvilles areas to North Bay, your idea is kinda selfish. Think of the people in Sprucedale and Kearney and the areas deep down back roads, you talking an hour plus to get to Bracebridge. Also the people in Algonquin park and that area. Talk about travel cost if they are that far away Heliocopters arent cheap.
The great MAHC hospital debate was started more than 7 years ago and apparently we are no closer to consensus. Ridiculous. If one big hospital was the answer, why don’t we have just one big grocery store, or one big restaurant, or any other kind of store or service that is far less important than our hospitals? Why don’t we just have one big town hall and one big fire station? We must consider that our transportation routes are constrained by our abundance of large and small lakes. Muskoka is nor like southern Ontario where you can carve out a road almost anywhere.
Muskoka is a fast growing area and we need to think ahead at least 30 years. Bigger is not always better or more efficient. Anyone who has done it knows that a huge impersonal organization is not always the best place to work. Indeed, duplication of non-urgent services should be minimized, but complete and total elimination of duplication will be impossible to achieve and will cost more than it saves.
The optimum solution is two hospitals, each equipped and staffed to handle urgent surgery and other procedures where time is critical to saving lives, especially during winter road conditions or during the tourist season when Muskoka’s population and traffic doubles. If we fiddle too long and Rome burns, we have only ourselves to blame, and the next generations will ask whether we were thinking at all.
I take it Pat Moran that you live in Bracebridge !!! In case you don’t know it but there is a shortage of staff everywhere !!! Since there seems to be people moving up here in the Muskoka region all the time lately, “ONE” hospital will soon be crowded.