Letter to the Editor

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Dear Editor:

Elections are a great time for the wannabe governors and the general population to meet head-on.

One of the major concerns of “Joe and Jane Q. Public” is health care - the ways and means of receiving medical attention and follow-up care and treatments as soon as should be possible within their own communities.

The present government - including the Ontario Ministry of Health (MoH) appears hell-bent on eliminating rural hospitals, from one end of the province to the other, thereby forcing doctors, paramedicals, etc., to reside in the new sites of “Area Hospitals”.

Prospective patients would have to travel, in some cases, 50 kilometres or more for even basic treatments and care. We have already suffered from the death of a patient in the Niagara area due to this “centralization”.

Centralization must look good to the Masters of Business Administration in the MoH. This de-humanization of patients and their fundamental needs are totally ignored by these people.

Firstly they fail to understand that the provision of care is a personal service - given by real medical professionals not by the dummies who have “money minds”. No one in government has provided figures to prove that the consolidation of rural hospitals will result in considerable savings (for the government). In fact, if my numbers are even nearly correct, physicians, along with paramedicals attached to rural hospitals, provide up to 75-80 per cent of required care and treatment for local patients, without references to secondary or tertiary units elsewhere.

So, all this centralization is for 25-30 per cent of patients? Any money that the government may save comes out of the pockets of patients and their families and friends who are obliged to make these unnecessary trips.

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Tuesday, July 12, 2011