Letter to the Editor;

It appears to me that all of this (news about the possible changes at St. Marys Memorial Hospital, including reducing the hours of its ER) started with a “Letter to the Editor” which ended with the statement, if my memory serves correctly: “be afraid, be very afraid!”
I will address this at the end, but now to the points of this letter:
• The signs: We now have these signs everywhere that say: SAVE THE HOSPITAL - ER 24/7. Well I find this very interesting since I do not recollect anyone saying the hospital was closing.
• ER 24/7: I know that you all believe that the ER is the cornerstone of our hospital - I GET IT! But, that said, what is it that you do not get? Here are a few observations for you to think about:
In 2009, the ER was held together by two doctors and some very competent locums, but in particular, Drs. Johnston and Gatfield; both of whom have family, a full daytime practise and Peter was the coroner. That also includes all the staff at the clinic, the nurses - in the clinic and ER. All of these amazing people work their collective butts off to bring you the ER 24/7. This abated a little as we brought on the newest Drs. Scheidel, Komorowski and Thornton.
Oh, and by the way, we have 11 doctors. Do you have any idea how lucky we are? Now I know that Drs. Pook and Hiscock do not participate in the ER, but these two doctors have paid their dues to this community and I am sure would like to retire. But we can't seem to find a way to help them ease into retirement - like recruiting new doctors, or like back in the day I believe, selling their practise to a new doctor.
So, yes we may face a closure of the ER for eight hours from midnight to 8 a.m. But as has been said many times - no decisions have actually been made and the timeframe has not been cast in stone. I believe Dr. Jewson has made that point on several occasions.
• Doctors and nurses: I understand we need to recruit doctors and nurses, but how do you propose to do that? In my conversations with everyone from my personal physician to Mrs. Showers to Mr. Dufour and the rest of you, I think we are all trying to figure out how best to do this - given limited resources, lack of doctors and/or nurses who really want to come to rural Ontario to practise medicine and actually work in the ER 24/7 and the lack of participation of those of you under 60 years of age.
And yes I understand that we all live busy lives, but if you do not participate in this process now we will have a much bigger problem. This all goes to voting in every level of the election process.
So how about we start by training doctors who are prepared to become general practitioners and not simply specialists. That would be a start. Or we could set up a taxpayer fund which we all contribute to annually through our property taxes. It doesn't have to be a huge amount, and could be administered and invested separately from the regular town budget.
Now we can also start advocating for the reinvention of the two-year practical nursing program which we closed down a few years ago and which some of our best nurses graduated from in Stratford.
And we need to start trusting all those men and women who are training really hard as EMTs. These folks do an amazing job. I would know that as they got my son to Victoria Hospital recently after a very serious vehicle accident. Thank you guys!
• VISION 2013:     According to Leslie Showers, who by the way I met with for over an hour to find out what this was all about, it is a series/set of recommendations being put forward to make best use of our resources and funding within the four-hospital alliance. But it does not say we are going to do this tomorrow.
Now this is where the fun begins! First to the issue of the phrase - “be afraid, be very afraid” This is very American horror movie style. Please stop. We are Canadian and that is not our way of doing things. You might want to reflect back on those town hall meetings in the US re: healthcare. It got pretty ugly.
That said, you might also want to consider that President Obama just enacted a sweeping new healthcare bill. It was not all that he wanted but it passed, and when this bill kicks into high gear we will be left in the dust.
If you think I am joking, then you need to think back to the 1980s when the US recruiting teams streamed across our borders and recruited our best and brightest to work in hospitals across the USA. Many are still there. Except this time when they come they will be really prepared and focused and the cheques will be enormous and they will have all these dangling participles such as bonuses, housing, schooling, etc.
• Technology: The way forward is going to have to include a much greater reliance on technology. We have already starting on this but for some reason we just do not seem to be able to catch up or perhaps think outside the box.
We have amazing resources in this country and some amazing people who have access to these resources, but for some reason we just don't seem to be able to communicate or figure out which hand is doing what. We need to communicate and get connected everywhere in this amazing country or we won't have to worry about Vision 2013 - we won't have universal healthcare as we know it today.
So to the last point/issue re: being Canadian. When I served in the regular army we had a change of commanding officer. He was an absolutely brilliant man who gathered all of his officers together on day one and said: “We are Canadian, we are not American, we are not British, and so if you wish to continue to wear or mimic either of these army traditions perhaps you should go and join their armies. If you are good with this then I invite you to stay and serve under me; but if you are not and would like to be posted elsewhere I will facilitate that and there will be no repercussions or career implications.”
I will tell you no one left that room and we had an awesome three years under the colonel.
So I say to all of you here in St. Marys, stop screaming at people trying to explain why and what we are attempting to do and stop writing negative letters. It is not Canadian. Please be constructive and stop worrying about “sunshine lists” because in the end it really is all about the “money!”

Hugh Mowat
St. Marys