It was nothing but positivity stemming from a Save Our Sydenham (SOS) meeting held on Thursday in Wallaceburg.
Conrad Noel, the chair of the SOS committee and the former vice-chair of the Sydenham District Hospital board, told the Sydenham Current those in attendance at the UAW Hall were impressed by a recent open house held by the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, and overall, are happy with the direction the local hospital is heading.
“I gave the opportunity to the people who attended the CKHA meeting to talk first and I think it was great to hear their opinion and how they felt about the meeting. It was positive,” Noel said.
“Now it was positive in the sense that there were not that many people in the lineup to go to different groups, but if we had the 439 former SDH members, it might have been a little chaotic. But overall for those who were there, they were very, very positive. They got to meet (Lori Marshall, the new CEO) and they got to talk to the doctors who are in charge of the ER now.”
Noel said people were impressed to see so many fresh and new faces among the CKHA brass.
“It’s all a brand new team,” he said.
“When they walked in, there wasn’t even one familiar face in there because a lot of people have been replaced. That was positive in that sense.”
Noel said the former SDH board members were given an opportunity to adress the crowd at the SOS meeting on Thursday as well.
“They are still very positive about what is going on,” he said.
“The fact the the CKHA has announced publicly that our hospital is safe, and this is always been a real problem… because every time we went out to talk to someone, it was ‘Are they closing this? What is going to happen?’ and now it is positive. That was the most important part of it.”
Noel said in terms of the governance model for the CKHA, everything is currently in limbo until CKHA Supervisor Rob Devitt makes the decision.
“He has full control of the former directors and also the Sydenham Corporation,” Noel said.
“Governance will be the issue. I don’t think he is ready to make any kind of announcement at this time.”
Devitt discussed this issue recently during an update with the media.
Check out our story, here: CKHA supervisor now focusing on governance
Noel said the SOS group will be paying close attention to any new developments with the CKHA.
However, no new meetings are being scheduled at this time.
“SOS will not be very active because right now, everything is positive,” he said.
“SOS is there as a watch dog. If something does not go through properly, you know what our population is like in Wallaceburg. It doesn’t take people very long to get riled up.”
– Photo credit: Aaron Hall
