SOURCES: upcoming staff/public meetings will unveil new plan for healthcare in Muskoka

By Ruby Truax

For almost nine years, ever since the first Save Our Services rally in 2015, Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare has been stringing us along, letting us think that we’d saved our hospital services here in Huntsville.

For years MAHC has assured us that they were working toward two full-service acute care hospitals in Huntsville and Bracebridge.

But that’s no longer the case.

There’s a new plan on the table (which is actually the original concept the MAHC board wanted all along): two hospitals but with different functions.

Bracebridge will have their shiny new hospital on a new site, and that hospital will do most surgery and outpatient procedures. Huntsville’s hospital will be a rehab and long term care facility.

Both hospitals will have emergency departments, but patients in the Huntsville catchment area will have to go to Bracebridge for day surgery, inpatient surgery, and outpatient tests like mammograms and cardio stress tests.

Huntsville will still be the district stroke centre, and we’ll have the MRI that the Huntsville Hospital Foundation worked so hard to attain for us, but for the most part, we’ll have inpatient beds for folks in rehab or people who are waiting for a long term care space.

This is what we fought so hard against, and yet nine years later, here we are right back where we started.

MAHC will be having community meetings all around Muskoka starting next week to introduce their “Made-in-Muskoka Healthcare System” and get our feedback. These meetings will be covered by local media, so this is an important opportunity for us to communicate that is not acceptable for Huntsville.

Back in 2015, we were able to stymie this plan because, when the Province saw the media reports that we were not on board, they told MAHC that they couldn’t proceed until they had consensus from the community. So we need to make it clear again, not only to MAHC but to the media, that we don’t accept this plan.

If you can’t make one of these meetings, please contact our MPP Graydon Smith at Graydon.Smith@pc.ola.org and let him know your thoughts.

Here’s where the community meetings will take place:

Dwight Community Centre – Monday, January 29 at 7 p.m.
Terry Fox Auditorium, Gravenhurst – Tuesday, January 30 at 7 p.m.
Burks Falls Arena Hall – Wednesday, January 31 at 7 p.m.
Active Living Centre, Huntsville– Thursday, February 1 at 7 p.m.
Rotary Centre for Youth, Bracebridge – Tuesday, February 6 at 7 p.m.
Port Carling Community Centre – Wednesday, February 7 at 7 p.m.