HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuron Expositor, 2009-08-05, Page 1LASSIC
August
Y4tr-39tlh
2009
Week 32-Vol.005 www.seaforthhuronexpositor.com
II 1
COLD W G.LL
BANK R
' •ti • •
113 ONTARIO ST., CUITTON $124,900
www.coldwellbankerfc.com
1 Main St. S. Seaforth Phone: (519) 527-2103
Wednesday Aug. 5, 2009
1.25 gst included
Visitors to
Seaforth
increasing
despite rainy
summer
Susan Hundertutar'k
A rainy summer is not dis-
couraging locals or travellers
from visiting Seaforth's tour-
ist booth, which at its new lo-
cation on Main Street for the
second year, is seeing greater
traffic than ever.
"We're confident we'll exceed
last year's numbers," says
tourism ambassador Laura
Bowers, who is working at the
booth- for the fourth year.
While the tourism booth had
seen 280 visitors by July 29
last year, this year's numbers
are up to 363, including 52 in
May, 107 in June and 204 (so
far) in July. Last year's totals,
which had risen from the year
before, were 488 by Labour
Day.
"We're seeing a huge variety
of people. If the weather is af-
fecting us, I wonder how many
more people might be coming
if it wasn't raining," says Gw-
ynne Burgess, Seaforth's sec-
ond tourism ambassador.
"Some people are just lost
and looking for someone to be
nice to them and others are lo -
See NEW, Page 8
Sea Lions win home meet...The
Seaforth Sea Lions earned the most
points when competing against five
teams at a recent home meet—pg. 10
Dan Schwab photo
Evelyn Walsh, 8, of Egmondvllle, uses a magnifying class to look at fingerprints during
a Mad Science presentation at the Seaforth Ubrary last Thursday afternoon when 15
kids Teamed about detective science.
McLean family donates two 4
acres near Seaforth hospital
for Gateway expansion
Health in rural communities was al-
ways important to both their parents,
so in their memory three former Sea -
forth residents are donating land to
Gateway Rural.Health Research Insti-
tute.
Maggie McLean and Susan White,
along with their brother Joe McLean,
are donating more than two acres of
land on the west side of Centennial
Drive, near Seaforth Community Hos-
pital, in honour of their parents, the
late A.Y. and Winn McLean. Gateway
plans to build a headquarters and lec-
ture theatre on the land. Their brother
Alan McLean died in 1999.
"A.Y. chaired the hospital board when
the 'new' hospital was built," said Su-
san White, "and making sure Seaforth
people had up-to-date healthcare was
always close to his heart. Our mother
was a dietician who tried to keep all
of us healthy. And behind the scenes,
she made a lot of what our dad accom-
plished possible." . Susan AVes m Bel-
leville, Ont. : -
A. Y. McLean, who would have been
100 on June 24, died in 1988, five years
See LAND, Page 2
Nurses
benefitting
from return of
Seaforth's
underserviced
status
Doctors still waging
to claim help to fund
locum coverage
Susan Hundertmark
41111111111111111111110
A sign in front of Seaforth Commu-
nity Hospital alerting recent nursing
graduates that the province will help
out with their tuition costs has been
erected since the hospital regained
its underserviced status with the
Ministry of Health.
But, while the hospital's rurality
index has been reassessed to return
the underserviced status, hospital
administration still hasn't learned
when the related benefits affecting
family physicians will go into effect.
"The rurality index score affects
a number of different programs: In
mid-July, Healthforce Ontario con-
firmed that the 2008 rurality score
will qualify our community to once
again be eligible for the rural fam-
ily medicine program," says Seaforth
Community Hospital site adminis-
trator Mary -Cardinal.
But, she adds that family doctors
are still in the frustrating limbo of
not knowing when, they can start
claiming provincial financial assis-
tance for locums, or doctors who fill
in when local doctors are away.
'It is frustrating and confusing be-
cause the nursing tuition assistance
program is in effect right now but
it's not yet in effect for 'the. doctors.
It may be retroactive for the doctors
but we don't know that yet either,"
says Cardinal.
Local doctors and healthcare ad-
ministrators and local politicians
have been lobbying for a return to
the underserviced status the hospi-
tal lost close to a year and a half ago.
Seaforth's hospital had been consid-
ered underserviced for the 15 years
See RECRUITER, Page 3