MOUNT FOREST – Mount Forest residents stressed how vital the local hospital is to the community to a public health care advocacy panel as West Grey’s mayor blasted cuts to Durham’s hospital.
The Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) held a public forum on Tuesday afternoon in Mount Forest to hear from locals about the importance of area hospital services and to develop recommendations for the future of hospitals, including small and rural ones, in the face of recent hospital department closures and cuts across the province.
This was one of eight public hearings held recently with this one focused on Mount Forest, Palmerston, Listowel, Durham and the region.
Locally, Louise Marshall Hospital has had temporary emergency department closures on at least 10 occasions since summer 2023, usually overnight but some lasting more than a day. Obstetrics services were also paused for a few months at Louise Marshall and Palmerston’s hospital in 2022.
The panel first heard from Kevin Eccles, mayor of West Grey, who lamented the provincial decision to transfer 10 in-patient beds from the Durham hospital to hospitals in Walkerton and Kincardine, leaving the it only as an emergency department during the day and closed in the evening.
“Three months ago, our hospital became under attack, I can’t use any other word for it,” Eccles told an OHC panel.
Eccles said Durham, a town of about 3,000, was a growing community and largely attributed that to having accessible health care.
He said he should have seen the signs after the first Zoom call when he learned the emergency department would permanently reduce its hours. He later recalled being “blindsided” in a second Zoom call when he learned about the transfer of in-patient beds and blamed poor management rather than staffing issues as the true cause of this cut.
“I maintain that it is not only in Durham but going across the province but this is the mode of attack on our health care,” Eccles said. “It is totally under attack by the present Ontario government. It is not about closing and saving a few bucks, what the ultimate end game here is the privatization of our health care.”
There have been no announcements of permanent changes at Louise Marshall Hospital and Wellington Health Care Alliance CEO Angela Stanley said in an email the changes at Durham hospital have not impacted the Mount Forest hospital either.
“With the intermittent Durham hospital ED closures, Louise Marshall Hospital has not seen a significant increase in ED volume,” Stanley said in an email. “We will monitor volumes closely and continue to work with our partners at South Bruce Grey Health Centre if this changes.”
Mount Forest community members still shared their worries about Louise Marshall Hospital, pointing out how important it is for the town’s growth, safety and how much money the community has fundraised for its equipment and improvements.
“If you don’t have a hospital, you don’t have people moving to your town,” a woman who identified herself as a Mount Forest resident of 65 years said tearfully. “I can’t imagine how Durham feels knowing that now they have no beds. It’s devastating and the amount of our town has put into putting in a new emergency and all the new upgrades and stuff, to think that could go right down the drain, it’s just heartbreaking.”
Former area MP Murray Calder also noted how much of hospitals are community funded, including a portion of the “bricks and mortar” and all equipment.
“Pretty soon you’re going to have a community that says ‘well why the heck should we go out and raise money for this equipment if you’re just going to take it away from us?” Calder said. “I have yet to hear of any urban hospital beds being transferred to rural Canada.”
Scott Hartle, president of the Louise Marshall Hospital Foundation, noted the hospital is particularly critical in the summer due to the spike in people passing through to cottage country or going to a nearby golf resort.
“Huge amounts of traffic in the summertime and these things cause accidents and people in accidents need a place to go,” Hartle said. “We’re very fortunate to have this service.”
The hearing ended with panel moderator Ashley Fox encouraging the community to continue the conversation and to submit something in writing to the OHC.
- with files from Isabel Buckmaster
