Our community hospital

It is not a hopeful cause. Since that February day in 1998 when the shiny new hospital corporation took form to administer four hospitals in the region, Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital has been on a slow, steady march to oblivion. To nothing.

With every significant decline, this community has rallied in defence of its hospital. But despite all the angry voices, packed meeting halls and protest signs, the relentless withdrawal of services, people and resources from this community hospital (to feed the larger corporation) grinds on.

This is particularly galling because this community bought and paid for its hospital. They funded (and continue to fund) the medical technology and tools the doctors, nurses and health care professionals use every day. When the hospital was wrenched out of community hands and thrust into the regional corporation, PECMH was a financially solvent, well-managed hospital. It served the needs of this community, as defined by this community, and funded by this community.

Yet each time QHC finds itself unable to balance its books—it is PECMH that takes the biggest proportional hit. The corporation’s administrators assure this community, with every slash of the knife, they are committed to the Picton hospital— as they reach in and take resources out of Picton and put them in Belleville.

“You may not have services in your community, but you will have them in your region,” are words used to soothe the pain. Or mask the larceny.

The folks who piled onto four buses headed to Queen’s Park last week understand the hopelessness of this situation better than anyone. They believed they owned their hospital—but bit by bit it is being taken away from them. It is a difficult thing to face.

Yet it was an upbeat mood on the buses back to the County on Wednesday. A delegation of POOCH (Patrons of Our County Hospital) supporters had met with the Minister of Health and policy officials. They were encouraged to believe they would get another meeting—perhaps in May or June. They were urged, when they return, to make a business case for an independent community hospital.

Now this may very well have been posed as an insurmountable obstacle—a standard government technique to sort the folks with the capacity, means and energy to do the work required to make a business case from the folks who just want things. Perhaps it is just busy work—meant to distract this community from what is essentially a political goal. Nevertheless, it offers an opening. We don’t have many of those left.

I believe a compelling business case can be made. Furthermore I believe this community is teeming with the expertise, the insight, the enthusiasm and capacity to pull together this business case.

It is just 15 years since this community managed its hospital. As I scan Al Capon’s This House of Healing, many of the administrative, governance and medical folks are still with us—in this community.

Many newly retired folks have arrived in the intervening years. They have come with a vast array of expertise and skills, as well as the inclination to do their part in repatriating the Picton hospital.

This community enjoys the close collaboration of County doctors, almost all of whom work in the hospital. Few, if any, other communities enjoy such deep connection between their doctors and their hospital. QHC spends millions of dollars each year on hospitalists to work at BGH—physicians who look after patients without a doctor or who have a doctor without privileges at the hospital. Picton hospital doesn’t use hospitalists. It doesn’t need them. Our community physicians work at, care for, think about and work to improve their hospital.

Then there is Lennox and Addington County Hospital in Napanee. L&A dodged amalgamation in 1998, in part it seems, as it already had a close connection with Kingston General. The Napanee hospital has lost some beds and services in the past 15 years—but nothing like the decimation Picton hospital has endured. Napanee now has 52 beds (24 active care, two surgical beds, four special care and 22 complex continuing care beds) down from 63 a decade ago.

And perhaps this must be said as well—even post-amalgamation, this community and our hospital would retain an important connection to Belleville General and Trenton Memorial hospitals. (Perhaps on a more equal footing—the longsought- after collaboration and coordination between hospitals might actually bloom and flourish.)

In the meantime, a business case for an independent PECMH must be assembled. The work has already begun. The template has been established and refined over 80 years. The passion and energy for a hospital of our own has never subsided.

One could not come away from Queen’s Park last week hopeful; governments are loathe to undo mistakes, for fear of the political damage in admitting them. Yet a door has been opened a wee crack. That is surely better than circumstances a week ago. Something perhaps to build upon.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca