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The insider
Part II in a series of stories about the folks who figured prominently over the past two decades in fighting for Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital (PECMH)
Fran Renoy knows PECMH inside and out. She served as a nurse at the Picton Hospital for many years. A keen observer, Fran noted both the challenges and the tremendous benefit the local hospital brought to this community.
So when the cuts began, shortly after the province had compelled this hospital to amalgamate with Belleville General, Trenton Memorial and North Hastings, Fran was among the first to sound the alarm.
Fran knew what we were losing. The human relationships. The intangible healing that happens when we are cared for by neighbours. The extra touch. Lingering by the bedside a few moments more, when it is needed most.
But Fran also knew the workings of this hospital. Its heartbeat. She knew how the various services worked together and relied upon each. How systems had evolved and been perfected over time. She knew things that bureaucrats staring at spreadsheets in Toronto would never understand about health care in this community. A feeling that was proved and amplified by every wrong-headed decision that emerged from Toronto through QHC officials in the first decade of the new millennium.
So, she began writing letters. And showing up to hospital meetings.
Letter writing didn’t come naturally to her. But Fran also knew she couldn’t stay quiet as the hospital she loved—considered a jewel— was dismantled bit by bit, year after year.
With every proposed cut, Fran explained in simple language what the loss would mean. (Almost always it meant the loss of good, smart people, with a boatload of experience and compassion.) She detailed the plight of nurses and other healthcare professionals as the tools were from their hands.
Fran knew instinctively in 2006 the then-health minister was wrong. George Smitherman had come to Picton with a promise of more money to assist in the planning of the hospital. But Smitherman had also come to end maternity care in Picton. He said the data shows that the health of “moms and babies” is improved in a setting where a lot of births occur. It proved to be incorrect. There is no such data. No such correlation. And Fran knew as much. The minister was merely providing political cover for the increasing centralization of services in the Belleville hospital.
“Before he left that day in June 2006, Smitherman told this community its hospital had a bright future. But the next four years were likely the darkest years for PECMH and this community,” wrote Fran in this newspaper.
Fran found it challenging to write so often about the steady losses suffered at PECMH. But if she ever wondered if her words were having an effect, someone would stop her on the street. To thank her. To encourage her to keep up the resistance. Often folks she didn’t know, but who had read her letters.
Undoubtedly one of her most impressive victories was in seizing control of QHC’s membership. With community representation diminished by amalgamation, the hospital corporation had formed a membership—a quasi-shareholder organization—which had some limited power to vote and affect policy at the annual meeting. Fran organized. Wrote letters. Cajoled. And prodded folks to buy memberships.
The goal was to establish a clear, loud voice among this membership. In a matter of a few years the membership grew from 100 to more than 700 members—74 per cent were from Prince Edward County.
Fran had organized and executed a coup of the QHC membership.
Of course, it couldn’t stand. Other factors were already making the hospital corporation wobbly and unpredictable. By 2009, QHC governance and management fully imploded. A provincially appointed supervisor was installed. There was no more membership. The veneer of democracy or community participation was torn off and discarded.
By 2013, the hospital corporation was weary of letter writers. One of its directors sued three letter writers and this newspaper for libel. Suddenly it was expensive to voice opinions about the hospital corporation. So most stopped.
Not Fran, however. She continued to attend hospital meetings. She cheered the creation of Leo Finnegan’s Healthcare Alliance, and later the creation of a municipal healthcare advisory. Fran continues to write letters, though less frequently.
Fran Renoy kept us informed through some of the “darkest times” of PECMH. Now, as we prepare to build a new hospital in Picton, to consider a truly brighter future for our community hospital, I am reminded of Fran’s courage and determination when it was needed most.
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