Andrea Macko
Staff Reporter

Stratford isn’t the only community facing changes to its hospital services  – and it’s up to everyone to demand better from our health care dollars.

Natalie Mehra, director of the Ontario Healthcare Coalition, spoke to approximately 100 people in St. Marys last week about the financial challenges facing hospitals in the province.
Mehra came at the request of the town’s community access group, which is trying to bring attention to the changes that the Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance (HPHA) is proposing to its four sites, including possible shortening of emergency hours and a refocus of hospital beds to more rehabilitative care at St. Marys Memorial Hospital (and to acute care at Stratford General).

Mehra explained that the coalition’s goal is to “protect the public health care system” by focussing on the financial aspects of public health care. The citizens’ coalition has helped stopped the creation of private cancer clinics and MRI/CT scan clinics in the past, and is currently holding its own hearings about rural and northern health care to counterbalance the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care’s Panel on Rural and Urban Heathcare.

Mehra said that the “erosion of the public health care system” started in the 1980s with user fees for certain services. Recently, the group has turned its focus to hospital restructuring “that removes democratic input and controls... (and the) centralization of medicare into larger centres that restricts access and control.”

She added that it’s the “bit and pieces that we have to fight against,” whether it be the shuttering of obstetrics or emergency services, or parking fees at hospitals.

While the McGuinty Liberals did restore hospital funding after the cuts and closures of the Harris government, Mehra says that during the past two years funding increases have not kept pace with inflation.

“What do you do? Cut.”

Mehra said that hospitals have been getting less of the health care budget “for years.” In 1981, it was 50 to 60 per cent; now it’s closer to 30 to 40 per cent.

“Hospital funding significantly declining as a share of the healthcare budget,” Mehra said, adding that the funds are going elsewhere, such as homecare and long-term care beds, that face more levels of bureaucracy or fall into private hands.

But she added that “it’s virtually impossible to analyze (where the money is going) ... there seems to be more managers than ever with fewer hospital beds.”

Now, she said, services are being cut that affect people’s lives.  

“If this requires a discussion on how to fund the health care system, so be it.”

Mehra said there is a plan afoot to close small-town hospitals across Ontario; if not for financial reasons, it’s due to staffing shortages of physicians and nurses.

Mehra stressed that “we are in a critical period of shortages – but we cannot allow the long-term closure of capacity due to short-term shortages.”

She cited a recent study done by her organization on the impact of hospital closures on emergency medical staff (the full report can be viewed at  www.web.net/ohc). All 50 paramedics interviewed expressed concerns about the closure of local emergency rooms, and stated that ambulances cannot replace the functions in emergency rooms.

“Public health care really is about values and priorities at the day,” Mehra believes. “Human beings are not widgets and don’t want to be valued that way.”

The floor was opened to questions and comments from attendees. St. Marys town councillor Marg Luna, who identified herself as a registered nurse, believes that “the problem goes far beyond the HPHA ... they are only reacting to the LHINs and Ministry to bring back a balanced budget.”

She added that “we need to be a voice that this is just not acceptable anymore,” including dealing with the shortage of registered nurses in the county.

Mehra suggested – as she did with a number of concerns over recruitment and retention, that the public needs to know what the LHINs are doing to recruit and retain good medical staff.

“Is it adequate or not?” is the question that the public needs to be asking – and receiving answers to.

Rod McNaughton of Seaforth was invited by the community access group to speak at the meeting about how cuts and closures have affected his life.

In November of last year, McNaughton’s wife Sharon became very ill and he took her to Seaforth Community Hospital; the doctor there said she had H1N1 and was told to go home and get as much rest as possible.

Sharon developed hives, and medication given to her caused vision problems – something, McNaughton said, was never checked by a doctor.

She was taken back to the Seaforth ER after collapsing at home, and admitted right way.

“As it was getting close to 8 p.m. when the hospital is official closed, one of the employees asked ‘are you almost done, because my ride is here.’ ... it makes us think what kind of health care we have in our town, and how employees pay more attention to what time is is than helping someone who needs it.”

The next day, Dec. 15, Sharon was taken to Stratford General for a CT Scan. When McNaughton asked if they were going by ambulance, the doctor assure him that they were – but instead, it was a patient transfer service.

Sharon died en route to Stratford hospital due to a blood clot in her lungs. McNaughton said that his family still wonders if things would have turned out differently if they had gone to a different hospital, if the doctor had looked into Sharon’s concerns more seriously – or if they had taken an ambulance to Stratford instead of a transfer service.

McNaughton’s closing message was “health care should be the most important thing and costs shouldn’t matter ... don’t close another emergency room.”