Health minister says CMH won’t be downgraded
MPP presses issue at Queen’s Park

By Lisa Rutledge, Times Staff
News
Mar 12, 2009


Ontario Health Minister David Caplan says there are no plans to downgrade Cambridge Memorial Hospital into an urgent care centre. Period.

The minister made the comment after being pressed by Cambridge MPP Gerry Martiniuk during question period at Queen’s Park Tuesday.

Martiniuk aimed to put to rest community concerns the hospital could be downsized by the Waterloo Wellington Local Health Integration Network from a full-service hospital to an urgent care-focused facility.

“There are, in fact, no plans by the Ministry of Health and Long- Term Care to take the actions that the member described,” stated Caplan, according to provincial legislature question period transcripts.

It was just want Martiniuk wanted to hear.

“I wanted Mr. Caplan to go on record and tell the people of Cambridge and North Dumfries whether or not the McGuinty government had a plan to greatly diminish the level of service provided by our great hospital,” Martiniuk explained in bulletin to the media.

Caplan also stated that: “I can tell you that I know that the Local Health Integration Network at Wa t e r l o o We l l i n g t o n has been working with the hospital and will continue to do so in an effort to continue to provide the quality of care that residents would want, and achieve a balanced budget position.”

It was welcome news for John Bell, chair of the hospital’s board of directors.

“That’s very nice to have on the record, if what he says is true,” he said.

But he still worries the minister’s words could amount to nothing more than semantics.
If an operational review team, currently working with the hospital to help resolve its $3.5 million deficit, decides on drastic program cuts or bed closures to reduce costs, he said the hospital won’t be able to offer full-service to its community anyway.

Hospital president Julia Dumanian and health network executive director Sandra Hanmer have both stated they don’t want to presuppose the outcome of the review. But Bell fears the worst.

He is concerned that without additional government funding, the team won’t have many other options but to make major cuts and close beds.

“We believe that’s all we’re going to hear from the review team.”

Although he emphasized that it’s too early to say, Bell noted that services such as oncology unit could end up under the scalpel’s edge as a means of cutting millions.

“It’s something that you could carve out,” Bell noted.

However, he said that if oncology services were moved to another hospital, even within the region, it would still require government funding to pay for associated medical costs.

Such measures would add more undue stress and inconvenience for local cancer patients, he insisted. Bell argued that Cambridge patients deserve to be served by their own community hospital.

The health network, which oversees funding and co-ordination of hospitals and health care programs and facilities, announced the four members of the operational review team last Friday.

The team is expected to have a report for the network and the hospital prepared by late spring.