Single Muskoka hospital committee bringing in Almaguin representation
NEWS Nov 28, 2015 by Rebecca Zanussi Almaguin News
KEARNEY – The future of Muskoka hospitals may be up in the air, but Almaguin leaders aren’t letting the pieces fall without them there.
A new committee formed by the North Simcoe-Muskoka health authority is discussing the options for creating one, single hospital in Muskoka — likely either in Huntsville or Bracebridge — and Almaguin is well represented at the table.
“Reeve Cathy Still will be the voice for Almaguin at the table talks and I will be her official backup in the event she cannot come to the meetings,” Kearney Deputy Mayor Yvonne Wills told her council during the Nov. 18 regular meeting.
“She communicated to me yesterday that she attended her first meeting and she has advised them that I’m going to be the official backup. So, I will be getting all of the official correspondence that she gets, the follow ups to the meetings, so I will always be apprised just in case I have to step in, which is good because now I can submit council reports to you and bring you up to speed as to where we are with this.”
The single hospital has been a hot topic for more than a year. This past summer Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare, which operates the Huntsville and Bracebridge hospitals, voted to move forward with a plan to close the two existing sites and build a single hospital between the two towns.
Wills informed her council about the steps the health authority, chaired by Robert Morton, is taking when looking at the single-hospital issue. Wills and Kearney Clerk Brenda Fraser met with Morton on Nov. 2 to go over the issue.
“We know it’s going to be one hospital. That is the conversation we had,” Wills said at the Nov. 18 council meeting.
“But what Mr. Morton has asked is that the councillors and reeves and mayors in our catchment area, which is Almaguin/Parry Sound district, understand the need going forward for the single-siting of a hospital and to work with them to support the single site location, as opposed to maintaining the two locations we currently have now that are no longer feasible based on the demographics of such.”
The committee met for the first time last week with Still at the table. Wills is going to continue providing updates to Kearney council as the work progresses, though that could take some time.
“This is not going to happen tomorrow,” she said.
“It’s going to happen over a ten-year period. So, all they’re asking for at this point is that you understand what they’re faced with in the LHIN and that we need to focus on the ten-year window and prospects of only one hospital.”