I want to thank Acting board chair Jane Havens of the Public General Hospital Society of Chatham and Gail Rumble, board chair for St. Joseph’s Health Services Association of Chatham Inc. for setting the record straight in their recent letter to the citizens of Chatham-Kent.
You have now jointly confirmed what the Wallaceburg and surrounding communities have been saying for 17 years, which is your only vision was seeing the closure of the Sydenham Campus of the CKHA.
One only needs to read in between your well scripted lines to see what has been happening to the Sydenham Campus.
Your two boards comprise 66% of the vote and have been using that voting imbalance for 17 years to systematically reduce the services at the Sydenham Campus often against the wishes of the SDH board.
Your two boards, along with the senior leadership of the CKHA are responsible for the Sydenham Campus now only representing 5% of the hospital based activities within the CKHA by outvoting the SDH board and then stripping services at the Sydenham Campus in the name of fiscal responsibility.
Keeping the Sydenham Campus open was never a part of the PGH and SJH boards’ vision and now that you are within 5% of having your vision of healthcare reached, you suddenly want to blame the SDH board and their 33% voting allotment as the reason for this current situation.
Spin doctor away all you want, your actions over the past 17 years speak the truth of what your goal has been all along for the Sydenham Campus.
We are not stuck in the past as you suggest in your letter.
Your boards just have a very self-serving, narrow vision of the future.
Doug Babbitt
Wallaceburg
Well Said!
Thank you, Mr. Babbitt. When my parents moved to the ‘Burg, many years ago, it had a small hospital. Small, but top-notch.I think the people of the area should fight for the hospital. It was built for our area, and by the people. I can remember payroll deduction for when OUR hospital needed something.I found the care top-notch. We got good doctors, good nurses. Now there is almost nothing there. And they want to take that, too. How can we help in the fight for our hospital?
Hi Joanna. We need to support our Sydenham District Hospital Board members who have been and will continue to be the lead people in driving forward a vision of health care for Wallaceburg, Walpole Island and the surrounding communities.We need to be there when they ask us to be and provide input into how the Citizens serviced by SDH see health care being delivered locally.
Im curious to know if these board members would like to sign a waiver for themselves and their families stating in the event of a medical emergency or distress, that they are brought to Wallaceburg hospital..
I bet not one will be up for that game of Russian ollette, yet this is the game they are forcing people from Wallaceburg and the surrounding areas to play.
Well said and justified
Please tell the people of Wallaceburg why ,when there is only two hospitals in CK that there is three boards.Please do not say there is still a St Joes because it stopped being ten or more years ago.So in reality there is just two boards that SHOULD HAVE EQUAL REPRESENTAION.
I want to know how they can have a board for St Joesphs hospital when it was closed, So someone explain how they are have a board ? Wallaceburg has a good hospital to bad they took everything away from us.I will not go to the chatham hopsital I will drive else where
I went to chatham for tests not long ago and was waited on by a very rude person I guess they pay her to play on her cell phone instead of treating people with respect, i WAS 25 MINS LATE for my appointment and I was actually 30 mins early like i was suppose to be.