The failure to designate the Sydenham Campus as a Small Rural Ontario Hospital cost local health care as much as $1 million dollars over the past four years, said SDH board chairman Sheldon Parsons.
Parsons said SDH had such status until 2012 when it was discontinued without explanation to that board.
“Members of our board have been asking the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance administration for years what happened and we can’t get an answer,” he said. “Based upon their word, they have no clue.”
Parsons said it took one phone call to ministry officials to find out what happened.
“We were on the list in 2012,” he said. “We disappeared (as a small rural hospital) in 2013 when the Alliance reported both sites as one entity. I was also told that all the CKHA had to do is report us as two sites again and we’d automatically be back on the list.”
When asked if he believed CKHA officials should have been aware of the financial consequences of their actions, Parsons refused comment.
Parsons said small rural hospitals received a one per cent funding increase during that time while larger operations were frozen or saw funding decreases.
“Our 16.7 share of the CKHA amounts to $25 million annually. One per cent of that is $250,000 per year so over four years, that’s a million dollars we’ve lost.”
Parsons said that money could have helped the Alliance “weather the deficit.”
He also said SDH could also have applied for a special fund for small rural hospitals.
“We qualified with less than 2,700 weighted cases and we were right on the line with being 30 minutes away from a larger centre. It might have come down to an administrative decision, they might have said we should be 31 minutes but we never got the chance.”
Requests for comment from the CKHA and Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) received a brief e-mail reply.
According to the LHIN’s Shannon Sasseville, “I can let you know that at this time we will not be providing comment.”
During its meeting, the board took note of a letter sent by Walpole Island Chief Dan Miskokomon to Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins expressing concern about his community under CKHA plans to close the SDH emergency and replace it with a part time facility with no physician on site.
“The Chatham-Kent Health Alliance shared their capital plan us last month, and we were alarmed to find out that they have partnered with the Chatham Kent CHC and CMHA to propose a ‘community hub’ that would replace the hospital services,” he wrote. “They have developed these plans without support or involvement from the local SDH board of directors, and they have only recently engaged our First Nation.
Closing the SDH would mean our members would have to be transported from Walpole Island to the General Public Hospital in Chatham. Although the Health Alliance describes this as a 40-minute drive from Wallaceburg, the drive from Walpole Island to General Public can be well over an hour from various rural residences across the islands that make up Walpole Island First Nation. Add to this our present lack of EMS services on Walpole Island, and an emergency trip to Chatham would mean a very long wait for acute care services.
Our population is growing exponentially-half of our members are under the age of 25. SDH is located in Wallaceburg, an unincorporated town of 10,000 that has faced numerous cuts to services in part because of a stagnant population. Yet our population continues to grow. The province’s roles and responsibilities are rapidly expanding when it comes to First Nations, and we ask for your cooperation and partnership as we examine options for maintaining an emergency department in Wallaceburg.”
I don't think a "No Comment" from the CKHA is either warranted or appropriate; a response that acknowledges a mistake has been made or a refutation of the claim is.