In ever-present reality of truth to power and accountability, Kincardine can do better

To the Editor:
RE: “Kincardine hears, yet again, hospital board’s case for Edge Plus CT scanner”

Kincardine council heard from the South Bruce Grey Health Centre board and chief executive officer (CEO), as well as the Kincardine and Community Health Care Foundation, Feb. 17, regarding the Edge Plus CT scanner.

From what I know to be truth prior, is that in 2016-17, the Kincardine Physicians Group started preliminary discussions which formed into a partnership with the London Health Sciences Centre and the specialty cardiology services group. This partnership, of sorts, was to bring the delivery of specialized care and services to the Kincardine community.
 
This was not ever led by the hospital board and, in fact, was led and co-ordinated through the efforts of Dr. Gary Gurbin and the Family Health Team. Another fact is that the Kincardine Family Health Team is most responsible for having led development and implementation of the cardiac rehabilitation program with St. Mary’s, not the hospital board.
 
How can the health centre CEO, Michael Barrett, explain his continued awkward misspeaking? Firstly, he says there is no cardiology program and then he issues a press release confirming that the purchase of some new equipment will ‘support the health centre’s cardiology program in Kincardine.’ Next, he offers that those specialized physicians are not privileged with credentials to work at the hospital in this elusive program.
 
Another point I would like to amplify is that Mr. Barrett states, “We are proud to be able to provide this specialized service in Grey-Bruce so that patients do not have to travel to larger centres.” What is missing is the following: “with the exception of CT scanning when a local patient who is included as one of the more than 10 per cent of the local population required to go to the Walkerton hospital to get a CT scan for that ‘specialized service’.”
 
I am also pleased at the support the foundation has been able to provide this specific project; however, I am not as pleased with how members of the hospital board and foundation have been responding and interacting with members of the community over the CT project – I would characterize these interactions as bullish, intimidating and bordering derelict.
 
Speaking of derelict, I also watched as Mr. Barrett stated during that same council meeting with the foundation that there ‘were no cardiology services’ at the Kincardine hospital nor were there any privileged doctors working from the hospital as part of that program. I guess Dr. Gerard Shoemaker is the exception to being acceptable by the hospital standards for being privileged and able to work at the local hospital and yet his boss, the chief of cardiology at London Health Sciences Centre, St. Joseph’s Health Care and Western University, does not have standing when being consulted and in the hospital’s limited view.
 
At the council meeting Feb. 17, Mr. Barrett was clear that the hospital had no cardiology service locally and the physicians providing that cardiology service do not have ‘privileges’ at the hospital. To my surprise, Dr. Shoemaker is part of this cardiology group and has credentials to see patients locally and has seen more than 2,000 Kincardine patients under this partnership. Guess where Dr. Shoemaker sees the patients for those appointments? At the Kincardine hospital.
 
If the hospital board and CEO are not open for discussion and have selective amnesia for when it best serves their agenda and motivations, perhaps they would be open for a discussion of the Ontario Hospitals Act. I mean, when there are major concerns about the management of a hospital and when funding of local programs and services is not being maintained to community need, the government has two potential approaches.

The first is less interventionist, and involves appointing an inspector or investigator to visit the organization. The investigator is tasked with studying a problem and issuing a report. These reports can suggest improvements that the hospital board and administrators can implement, or can suggest that a supervisor needs to be appointed to carry out the specific recommendations.

The other option is to appoint a supervisor who “has the exclusive right to exercise all of the powers of the board” or hospital corporation. Supervisors report directly to the Ontario Minister of Health and Long-Term Care. In urgent cases, a supervisor is appointed directly by the minister, without an initial investigation. The powers of a supervisor are extensive. Previous supervisors in Ontario’s hospitals have dismantled hospital boards, senior administrative teams, and physician leadership.

I am not suggesting this is an appropriate measure, but when the board members become less responsive and accountable to the very community for which they are entrusted to provide quality health services, and become tone deaf, there are feasible options that can be explored as recourse in an effort to pull back the iron veil of the olde boys club, bound together by their mutual consent to repeal, revise and update their bylaws to extend board terms at will and advance their personal agendas of ‘yes-men.’

This community stands behind its hospital and rallies behind those charged with providing that care. It wasn’t long ago when the community supported the physicians in confronting the board about the executive in-charge at the time and well, let’s just say that he is no longer around these parts.

In an ever-present reality of truth to power and accountability, Kincardine can do better.

Marta McBride
Fergus
Seasonal resident of Kincardine