Citing the need for more consultation, a report about Wallaceburg’s hospital has been referred back to Chatham-Kent staff.
Wallaceburg Coun. Carmen McGregor was seeking a report about the economic impacts on the Municipality if the Sydenham Campus emergency room were to close.
“Hospitals and jobs go together and are economic anchors in our communities,” Carmen McGregor said. “What I want is a high level report to outline the possible economic effects that could occur to all of Chatham-Kent.”
However, Chatham Coun. Brock McGregor entered a successful motion to refer the request back to administration.
“I’m hesitant to dip our toes into this fray,” he said.
“This is a provincial jurisdiction issue and I think we are maybe viewing it through the wrong lense, if we’re only able to focus on economics. I think that is not a responsible way to view a health provision decision. Politically, we’ve heard Premier Wynne and Minister Hoskins say they don’t have a plan for closure and politically that is their responsibility and I think it really where we need to leave that.”
Brock McGregor said he thinks there is a resource issue as well.
“I think a report that would meet the criteria outlined here in the motion would need to be quite extensive, he said. “I don’t think that we need the expertise here to do that. The portions of the report that we do are perhaps best done by some individuals that will be very busy with the outcome of the fire service review.”
Brock McGregor said the “responsible thing to do” is to refer this to administration until they can engage with the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance and local healthcare practitioners.
“We can’t wholesomely vote on this without hearing from CKHA, without hearing from local healthcare practitioners,” he said.
“I think it is premature to start a practice that’s going to produce a report that is going to be used in a political arena that we don’t have jurisdiction in. The only thing that most of us are aware of in this issue is what we read about in the newspaper, of course Counc. (Carmen McGregor) and Coun. Wesley have been much more involved and will have more information, but I think for the rest of us to be voting on this and to be devoting resources here without having some engagement with CKHA and local healthcare practitioners is premature… we need that engagement.”
Brock McGregor’s motion was passed 9-8.
Carmen McGregor said there are more than just costs involved with this issue.
“What is the possible economic fallout… for example, losing community residents to relocate closer to hospitals, losing potential new residents if the community doesn’t have an ER or health services, losing the opportunity for future economic development because there is no emergency service,” she said.
“Some of these go on and on… our community and that hospital services 25,000 plus population, including overflow from Chatham and Lambton.”
Before the vote was conducted, Don Shropshire, the chief administrative officer in Chatham-Kent, said staff could commit to looking into the issue.
“It’s recognized clearly that healthcare and setting the level of service is not something that is a local municipal government’s responsibility, but the motion clearly speaks to economic development, resident attraction and retention and also the impact on our emergency response personnel,” he said.
“That would be the limit for the scope of our activities. We also don’t have trained expertise for the areas in this type of report but we have committed that we can look at the experience of other communities that have had similar types of closures and bring that experience to council for your consideration and we’ll also follow up with emergency response personnel to understand what their impact would be.”
