Headwaters Health Care Centre (HHCC) will make no decision on moving Shelburne’s long-term hospital beds this month, Board chair Margot Hornseth told a packed Grace Tipling Hall last Thursday, but there’s no assurance it will await the outcome of a task force to study alternative roles for the Shelburne facility before passing its 2010 budget, on which the fate of the Shelburne hospital rests.

Over the past 17 years, the Shelburne hospital has gone from being a full-service one to a 26-bed long-term care facility with an X-ray department and a laundry. Prior to amalgamation of the Dufferin Area and Shelburne District hospitals, it was an admissions centre for central and north Dufferin.

Now a HHCC budget-balancing proposal to move 22 of those beds to the Orangeville site is seen by the Shelburnearea community as a final stripping of the last traces of a real hospital, and has led to a groundswell of opposition from residents, local and county politicians, the Chamber of Commerce and from within the medical community itself.

Longtime cardiologist Dr. Gord Willans, who had spent 11 years on the HHCC Board and nine of those as chief of staff, stated bluntly that “it would be a crime to close Shelburne on six weeks’ notice.”

He said the Shelburne sacrifices (of emergency admissions and acute care) had been “the most significant factor in building the new facility in Orangeville,” and added that the joining of Dufferin Area and Shelburne District hospitals had been “the only voluntary amalgamation” in the province.

Dr. Willans said an Oct. 15 medical staff resolution opposed moving the Shelburne beds.

HHCC president Cholly Boland disputes that. He said at the meeting that he doubts if there are 50 doctors in opposition, and repeated his assertion “categorically” in a later phone interview.

The task force has yet to be established but is expected to

begin

deliberations early in 2010. Appointments to the group would be made by Central West Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), Thursday’s meeting was told.

HHCC Board Chair Margot Hornseth opened the presentations by saying that it is “the Board’s decision and not an administrative decision” whether to adopt the recommendation to move 22 of Shelburne’s 26 complex longterm care beds to Orangeville.

She introduced several members of the Board who were in the audience, and said they would be the ones making the decisions on how to balance the budget. The purpose of the forum, impartially chaired by Gord Gallaugher, was to gain public input. She said all comments would be considered before a decision is made, and invited the public to submit any further comments that had not been heard at the gathering.

“Will it be by moving (the Shelburne beds) or by some other (change)?” Later in the

evening, Ms. Hornseth raised eyebrows by using pediatrics as an example of one service that could be affected. “If the Board does not approve the plan, we will have to cut pediatrics services. We have to make that decision but it will not be made in December,” she said. Jane Aultman, an Amaranth

councillor, was among the surprised in the audience. “Just so I understand, there is no other plan?” She said this would mean that Dufferin residents would have to go to Brampton. She suggested this would be a case of pitting babies against seniors.

In his presentation, Mr. Boland reiterated his reported view that long-term care patients would be better served if the program were moved to Orangeville.

In Shelburne, he said, Dr. (Nadine) French visits the hospital twice a week. In Orangeville, there are physicians available at all times.

He said the recommendation is not for closure of the Shelburne site but is for the moving of one program. Laundry and X-ray would remain at Shelburne. “We are not planning to close the building.” He said the savings would come from eliminating the need for transportation plus the pooling of staff at Orangeville, among other things.

Amaranth Deputy Mayor Walter Kolodziechuk said the Orangeville site is “not well-suited to continuing care. Have you considered the cost of (renovating)?” Mr. Boland didn’t have an estimate.

Addressing the budget considerations, Mr. Kolodziechuk said he had gone to the ministry website and found there had been four additional persons in Headwaters administration this year earning in excess of $100,000. Mr. Boland indicated he hadn’t come prepared to speak to personnel information.

LHIN is responsible for planning, organizing and funding health care for an estimated 720,000 population in a “very vast diverse area” that includes Brampton northward through Caledon and Dufferin, CEO Mimi Lowi-Young said.

“Health needs are changing all around us.” On hospital times, she said gall bladder patients used to spend three weeks in the hospital; now they spend a day and go home for bed rest.

“Where do we need to create services?”

LHIN Chairman Joe McReynolds emphasized the changing role of hospitals by telling of his own father’s long-term recovery from an auto accident “on the day before his marriage.”

Among audience members strongly opposed to the loss of long-term care at Shelburne, Chamber of Commerce president Ron Munro said he was there representing “1,000 businesses and their employees.”

He said, among other things, that Dufferin- Caledon is one of the provincial “places to grow. We have serious concerns (including inadequate funding).” He said the Chamber wants to see “equal access to services that don’t require a 100- kilometre round trip.”

Mr. Boland acknowledged that the area is growing but said he hadn’t experienced too few beds for growth. “The nature of health care is changing. We’re keeping seniors at home as long as possible.” He added that there are now empty beds at both Orangeville and Shelburne.

Dr. Willans said a majority of the medical staff at Orangeville is opposed to moving the long-term care from Shelburne, to which Mr. Boland countered, “there are more than 100 doctor affiliates. I’m not sure you can say 50 are opposed.”

At the gathering last week, Mr. Boland said the Shelburne beds would not be moved for several months and, despite her statements that no decision on the beds had been made, Ms. Hornseth said the beds “would” be moved.

In a phone interview outside the forum, Mr. Boland said it would take three months at a minimum to move the beds following a decision of the Board. He said Ms. Hornseth’s statement of a positive move would have to be balanced with her repeated assertions that public input would be considered before a decision was made.

As well, he said her reference to pediatrics had been used as an example “of the kinds of decisions boards have to make.”

At press time Dr. Willans had not returned a phone message seeking added information on the medical staff’s resolution.