Is the Worst yet to Come?

Health & Fitness

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Southampton Memorial Hospital has one of the few ERs in the local area

If you live in Saugeen Shores year round, do NOT plan on having a heart attack or any other medical emergency at night during a blizzard in the winter because, like the highway, the emergency room at the Southampton Memorial Hospital will be closed.

According to sources, there was a crisis meeting Friday, June 12th, between the Bruce Grey Health Unit and the Saugeen Shores' physicians.

Like other rural hospitals, the Emergency Rooms (ER) depend on the Ministry of Health for the locums who fill in for doctors and also for funding. As of September 1st, however, no further assistance will be provided.

In fact, the Ministry has gone even further. If the hospital does not provide a written plan that it will not require assistance after August, the Ministry will pull all assistance for July and August as well.

Therefore, beginning in September, there will be no ER service in Saugeen Shores during the evenings.

Local physicians apparently could not agree to a plan that would see ER coverage continuation and the hospital corporation does not have a plan where it would increase coverage.

In February,the Saugeen Times wrote:

"An inventory and needs assessment will be completed, including information on each hospital, emergency department human resources, the utilization of emergency services, and the communities served. The information collected will be used in phase two of the study to assess how to address the current issues, and also in developing the LHIN’s Health System Design, a comprehensive blueprint which will give direction to the location of programs and services within the South West LHIN. The Emergency Department Human Resources Project was announced by the South West LHIN in December 2008, and is expected to be complete in April 2009."

Then, again in February, the Saugeen Times covered a public forum in Owen Sound regarding health care. The following is an excerpt from that meeting.
 

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15/06/2009 09:57 PM

Southampton Memorial Hospital name changed with amalgamation

"According to Rick Janson, OPSEU representative, "LHINS are far from local and they are now in the process of looking at rationing-down many services. I am telling you (people) to expect major cuts. The LHINS are pushing very hard to cut services in hospitals, especially emergency departments."
A retired Public Health Nurse from Kincardine also pointed out the fact that offices have been closed throughout Bruce Grey. "We've had offices closed in Kincardine, Lucknow, Southampton, Port Elgin, Durham, Flesherton and Clarksburg, to name a few. "

It would appear, from today's meeting, that Janson was right .... expect major cuts.

The community of Saugeen Shores has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for its local hospital but, is this the beginning of the end for Southampton Memorial Hospital?

Mayor Mike Smith said that, "However this is looked at, the loss of any service is bound to have a long-term affect. It's the old adage, 'you can never get back what you've lost'."

According to a local physician (name withheld by request), "This will have a huge impact on the community if it goes through. People may not realize how important the ER is ... until they have an emergency at 2:00 a.m."

In Kincardine, the Friends of the Hospital have been lobbying to break away from the South Bruce Grey Health Unit and have the hospital either become an independent entity, the way it once was, or partner with another rural hospital. It would seem that amalgamations and their resulting trickling funding formulae are not working, at least not at the grass roots level.

Is this the way of the future ... to go back to hyper-local health care, hyper-local education, hyper-local food production and consumption ... and hyper-local news?

Will this sign soon become obsolete