The pushback against Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare’s (MAHC) new service delivery model has been swift and vocal in south Muskoka.
Last week MAHC announced significant changes to the levels of service offered at their Huntsville and Bracebridge hospitals. The news has been met with considerable opposition at a series of town hall meetings, in addition to petitions and letters of opposition to the plan from dozens of area healthcare workers.
The South Muskoka Memorial Hospital Auxilary and Cottage Country Family Health Team (CCFHT) have now added their voices to the growing tide of discontent.
On January 30, the CCFHT passed a motion giving their, “full support to the position taken by the physicians of South Muskoka in their submission to the MAHC Board and requests that MAHC pursue an alternate model for inpatient care.”
The CCFHT includes family doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners, as well as other healthcare professionals serving patients in Gravenhurst, Bracebridge, Muskoka Lakes, Township of Georgian Bay, Wahta, and surrounding areas.
According to a letter from the Team to the MAHC Board of Directors, the proposed new model will further challenge the recruitment and retention of primary care providers and specialists in South Muskoka.
“Many residents of South Muskoka will look south to Orillia for inpatient and other care as Orillia is geographically closer than Huntsville,” reads the letter. “Long-established care and referral pathways would be dismantled and relationships that the CCFHT has established will be disrupted.
Furthermore, the CCFHT Board requests that CCFHT be invited to participate in future planning and design work to ensure a joint integrated plan for healthcare services development in our communities.”
The Auxiliary has also issued its own open letter to the MAHC Board of Directors citing their concerns over the proposed service level changes.
“This is a total lack of respect to the work that we have done for you over the years when you take our hospital away from us,” it states.
For the past 75 years, the Auxiliary’s role has been to enhance the stay of the patients in the hospital by assisting patients, staff, and visitors and raising money to help purchase medical equipment.
“According to the new plan there will not be a need for volunteers with only 18 short-term stay beds, which is most disappointing to those who show up to help out our hospital every day,” reads the letter. “Neither will there be any need to do any fundraising for hospital equipment, as we have done every year since we first became a volunteer support to our hospital.”
The Auxiliary outlines specific concerns over obstetrics, the healthcare of seniors and potential transportation issues.
MAHC will continue to host their “community chats” until February 7, 2024. Visit www.mahc.ca/communitychats for more information and to register to attend a virtual chat via Zoom.
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This seems on the surface to be another misguided plan by the provincial government and MAHC to screw up healthcare in Muskoka even worse than it is.
The money spent on Huntsville Hospital to be thrown away, how do the generous donors of the past feel about this?
What we need is more doctors.
Our nurse practitioner has vanished into thin air with no notice and no explanation, some test and referrals were apparently never made, and we have no idea where to turn.
We need doctors, not buildings at the current time. We are not even utilizing the resources we have.
Signed, Desperate for Healthcare.
Life has many twists and turns but we frequently travel the same road yes that is what we are doing with the hospital. Approximately, 20 years ago a. Beloved surgeon in Huntsville made the suggestion that we should be planning for a regional hospital. To say the least, the politicians, the doctors and the community rallied in opposition. It was then decided that the hospital needed to be upgraded and much political, community and medical staff rallied for two hospitals. Here we are today, and it looks like we still will not get updated state of the art hospitals because no one wants to lose any control or any change in the name of progress. Personally I would have preferred a regional hospital, but I do hope we are going to get , some kind of a hospital that meets the needs of Muskoka. If this resistance continues we will loose this opportunity for improvement and we will travel further and younger physicians will. Not come
I have a question about family doctors and services. I continually read that we are short of family doctors and I know people who are waiting for a family doctor but I am concerned that 44 doctors in South Muskoka have signed a petition and if I divide 44 doctors into 25,000 people it really doesn’t seem like an excessive load – maybe it is impossible to service 500 people but I think if that is the case there is truly something wrong with the system