HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2010-05-13, Page 16PAGE 16. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2010.More prevention, says Williams
ARC should have had access to
more information: MacLellan
The agenda for the Avon Maitland
District School Board’s April 27
meeting, held at Elma Township
Public School in Newry, included
presentations from four officially-
recognized members of the public
who had signed up in advance. The
main message, however, could be
summed up best by the words
spoken by one single unofficial
public delegation.
“We’d like to see those
spreadsheets, too” stated Huron East
Deputy Mayor Bernie MacLellan.
On two specific occasions
throughout the evening, trustees had
asked for further information in their
deliberations about proposed school
consolidations in Huron East/North
Perth (HENP) and Bluewater/South
Huron. Exeter-area trustee Randy
Wagler requested calculations of the
students per square foot of
playground space at each of the
board’s elementary schools; and
Stratford representative Meg
Westley requested easy-to-decipher
spreadsheets of the different staff-
generated and community-proposed
options in each of the regions.
“I would really love it if I could
see on one page what the
recommendation from who is and
what the cost breakdowns are,”
Westley commented during the
meeting. “You guys [administrative
staff] know this inside out but…I
can’t keep track of it.”
Following the adjournment of the
meeting, MacLellan approached the
public microphone, stating he had
been a member of the community-
based, board-mandated HENP
Accommodation Review Committee
(ARC) that had led public
consultation into possible changes
from September-March. The
microphone was not on, but
MacLellan’s voice was easily
audible to the approximately 40
people in attendance – a number
which had dwindled from about 70
at the beginning of the two-hour
meeting.
The Huron East politician
expressed sympathy with Avon
Maitland administrators for having
to recalculate a series of factors in
both the HENP and Bluewater/South
Huron proposals. Business
superintendent Janet Baird-Jackson
spent a good portion of the meeting
going over these miscalculations –
none of which, she claimed, had any
material implications for staff’s final
recommendations.
MacLellan conceded these are
very complex scenarios, and
timelines are short, so errors are
inevitable.
But he argued members of the
ARCs, which have now been
formally disbanded, should have
access to any additional information
made available to trustees prior to
their planned June 22 final
decisions.
To kick off the meeting, four
people addressed the board: two
supporters of Grey Central Public
School in Ethel, one from Hensall
Public School and one from Wallace
Public School in Gowanstown. In
the audience, Grey Central made the
most visible impression, thanks to
several dozen large-sized lapel
buttons.
The board proposes to “disregard
the resources that we currently have
in Grey Central and use hard-earned
tax dollars to build those same
resources onto Brussels Public
School – a mere six kilometres down
the road,” commented Grey Central
parent Andrea Hruska, referring to a
proposal to turn Brussels Public
School into a Kindergarten-to-Grade
6 facility for much of Huron East.
Grade 7 and 8 students from the
Grey Central catchment area would
be accommodated at Elma
Township.
Hruska likened the plan to a
presenting a child with three glasses
of water: one full, one partly full,
“and one that was cracked and
needed to be emptied immediately.”
The child would empty the cracked
glass into the one that was partly
full. But she suggested the board’s
plan amounts to emptying the
partly-full glass (Grey Central) into
the cracked one (the much older
Brussels Public).
The presentation made by
grandparent Evon Cochrane,
meanwhile, “was just based on what
Grey Central means to me,”
Cochrane said after the meeting.
“It’s more than just friends and
neighbours, it’s more like an
extended family.”
Another part of the HENP
proposal is to replace Wallace and
Listowel Central public schools with
a new K-8 facility, pending the
approval of Education Ministry
Continued from page 12they want to relocate rehabilitationbeds and specialists from Stratfordto another, more central location forthe HPHA, thus freeing up bed spacefor medical and surgical beds at
Stratford General.
This realignment of services and
beds will create centres of speciality
within the HPHA, and create
repatriation opportunities, bringing
patients back to the area that are
going to bigger centres.
Another challenge that the HPHA
is facing, and trying to plan to
overcome, is the changing face of
medical staffing.
In previous years, doctors and
nurses would graduate from medical
schools ready to work in all facets of
the hospital. Williams used the
example of Doctor Keith Hay in
Clinton.
“We have a system built around
people like [Doctor Hay], who want
to do everything,” he said. “But
new professionals are more
focused. Registered Nurses (RNs)come out ready to either work inthe [emergency department] or [ina certain specialty], as do doctors.We have to have a system thatallows them to work to their
fullest.”
Williams stated that they are also
becoming more comfortable with
using Registered Practicing Nurses
(RPNs) to help allow RNs to
practise some of their more intense
functions.
Williams stated that the face of
employment in the HPHA may
change with the realignment of
services, but it won’t shrink.
“We’re going to maintain our
employment levels and try to
enhance them,” he said. “We’re
committed to strengthening our
Human Resources pool.”
The next step in the Vision 2013
plan is to assess the outcomes of
the community events the HPHA
has held, like the town hall
meetings, and then develop
recommendations based on thatfeedback.The HPHA board will considerthe plans in June 2010 and thenpresent the agreed upon plan to theLocal Health Integration Network
(LHIN). Provided the LHIN gives
the project the go ahead, they will
then develop an implementation
plan to have changes happening in
a timely manner.
“The LHINs have the right to
force us to make changes if they
want,” Williams said. “But we
want to make the decisions locally
and be accountable instead of
having the LHIN force it.”
In the forecasted future,
Williams said that there needs to
be a shift in the way medicine is
handled; there needs to be more
prevention and less repair. More
money needs to be spent on
education and preventative
medicine than on the treatment
part of the medical budget,
according to Williams.
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The Maitland Conservation Foundation held its annual
spring dinner and auction at the Brussels, Morris and Grey
Community Centre a few weeks ago. One of the night’s
biggest draws was the live auction, which was lead by
auctioneer Dave Johnston. (Vicky Bremner photo)
By Stew Slater
Special to The Citizen
Continued on page 17