Loading...
The Lucknow Sentinel, 1979-12-26, Page 10nn, Page 10--Lucknow Sentinel, Wednesday, December 26, 1979 0 :ospital bed euts..- a year long issue fpoilAt February People in Wingham and the surrounding area are very angry with the Ontario - - government for proposing hospital bed cutbacks and they are not going to take it. Over 200 of them crowded in to the Nurses' Assistants Training Centre at the hos- pital on February 21 to ask questions and explain action. The citizens demanded that',;the hospital board ask ~ the Hon. Dennis Timbrell, Minister of Health to come to a public meeting in .Wing - ham to answer their ques- tions and demands. They also asked .that the hospital board solicitor look. into legal action.. Solicitor Jack Goodall will determine if the hospital should seek` an injunction to prevent the province from closing 21 of its active treatment beds. The people who attended the "meeting were willing to set up a• fund to cover .legal costs .and they plan a letter writing campaign to Dennis Timbrell. 'Petitions:. which have been circulated in the. :area since the provincial guideline was announced in January will be presented .to• Timbrell when he comes .to Wingham Norman Hayes, executive director, of Wingham and District Hospital, told • the meeting that in the mean- time the boardplans to Ter : - shade the ministry -to raise the number- of long terra or extended . care beds - at the hospital to 35. The'govern• meet's .guideline only per tains to •active treatment beds. Hayes said 'at the present time, 3:4 beds arebeing used for long ;term patients bur only i;8 of those beds . are'. extended .,care beds.' By lowering .thee number of active treatment beds at the hospital, the number of beds closed would be reduced. "What we are trying to do: now,. is hammer a . board across a leaky dam," sa d Hayes, • People at the ' meeting made, several suggestions to allow the beds to remain open. l'hey said: they were willing to pay a user fee per day per bed and for emer- geney, services. . One person asked why the beds could not be kept open if the commun ity was willing to pay Tie. cost. Hayes said this money, would. be declared` . offset revenue and' the government would take it, The bed closures, will affect jobs at the hospital. Between 10 and 15 fulltinte equivalents . including part time and casual labour will, be .laid off sail Hayes. As to jobs in place in the hospital 'at the present time, he could- n't estimate how many may be affected. The crowd pressed for some action arid were unwill- ing to leave ;without .estab- fishing a definite 'course of action. They feared if a plan was, not laid out that night, the motivation to do slime- thing'•�would ., "fizzle" after •the Meetingand nothing % would be done. they refused to 'accept, board ehairMan, Jack Hod. gins' stateniient that nothing' eould'be done until the board learned More. • "We have to explore every avenue toget relief from the cutbacks," said Hodgins, "but the proposal is relative- ly new and as we become more sure of what is happen- ing we will probably hire a lawyer." The crowd said` March they would be willing to set up a fund to hire a lawyer and collect money for legal costs, The board decided that the hospital board solicitor could look into an injunction to stop the government from closing the beds. Hayes said such .an.injunc- tion would have to be in force before April .1 because the hospital faces penalties if the beds are not closed by that date. He said if Wingham were ' to get an injunction before April 1 he may have to close the 14 beds anyway, The government cut $160,000 from the hospital's `budget for this year because 14 beds were to be closed, If the government does not Hospital board sill fight bed cuts BY HENRY HESS Wingham and District ;Itspital has iiecided' it will not submit to the closure of beds ordered by the provin- cial health ministry. Instead it will join forces with the citizens' committee formed to fight the cutbacks in . at- tempting to convince Health Minister Dennis Timbrell to reconsider his stand. - In the meantime the hos- ' pita! will continue to operate at its full 100 -bed capacity and no staff will be laid off, even if this means running into the red by the end of the April year, At a special meeting last Wednesday night the hospit- al board gf governors r - red by pressure from apubic meeting held the previous night, voted unanimously to fight by • a ' means at its disposal th`r'., sure of even a single bed. (Six members of the 17 member board were • absent from the meeting.) The board elected five from its. ranks . to sit down with the citizens' .group and help preare a brief to the health minister as the next step in the campaign,to save the beds. • The motion opposing the bed closures was put forward by Dr. R. D. Wilkins, presid- ent of the medical staff, who vigorously argued the case for meeting the cutbacks head-on. This is a community hospital financed originally on a private basis, he pointed out. When the government took' over the funding 'of health care it contracted with the board for supply of medical. services. The hospital has kept up its end of the agreement splendidly, he declared, pointing to its recent three- year accreditation as a 'Blue .Ministry designate The 14 beds Wingham and r;I istrict Hospital was to close in April .have been designat- ed "floating beds" by.: -the Ministry of Health and will.. remain open, according . to the hospital Is executive dir- ector, Norman Hayes. Hayes met with ministry officials in To ronto on Monday and told t Se tine) Tuesday morn- ing, s; hospital will keep its 100 im s : and the motley taken ' ' t of the operating budget when •the .beds were, ordered closed will . be re- stored. We have our beds for now, and we have our money back for now," said Hayes. The hospital 'board of • governors decided at a meet- •' ing April 111- to approach ;the ministry to ''maintain the status quo at the hospital while they .looked into a Health Service Organization, (HSO). Hayes said -Tuesday, the ministry's .decision to allow,: the beds to remain open and to restore the money to the hospital budget is not contingent on Wing - ham's establishing a Health,t Service Organization: ry officials and theWirigham i ne aecisto i to keep open p •: Hospital board, the medical the 14 beds now does. not ' staff and the steering com- mean the 17 beds scheduled • mittee for wholistic care. to close in October to., meet "Do we accept .Wingham ministry guidelines vviif "also is entirely different? (than remain open. Hayes said the any other hospital to the 14 beds was his prerequisite province)?" asked Dyer. for negotiatirig with the Dyer said he was prepared ministry over the ;HSO, to reinstate the funds:, for The floating status for the •*-se\:n beds require i for 14 beds will mean. the chronic care at the hospital hospital can use the beds as but the other seven would be. either active treatment or closedand the money to. chronic care beds. operate them would be taken Ministry officials are corn- " from. the budget. ing to Wingham on Thursday. 60 day study completed to meet with the hospital by the hospital's; executive board of governors, physi- director, Norman Hayes, clans and the steering com- showed the need for seven mittee for, wholistic care to more chronic beds at the disctiss a Health Service • Wingham Hospital. • Hayes Organization as a pilot pro- said the Study did not gram in Wingham over a five" address the person who is. in year period. - an . active treatment bed for If the hospital were to act short petted' of stay seven Or, as the nucleus of an HSO th eight times a year. On -the the . project would provide, funding to build an addition tothe hospital to update services including an inten- sive care unit;, an operating room and outpatients servic- es. The second floor of the addition wouldlirovide rental space for public health` arid other uses, seminar . and meeting rooms and offices. • Hayes told a regular meet- ing of the hospital's board of governors ,on : April 19 he. thinks, Wingham hospital as May emes Assistant: deputy health minister Allan Dyer has denied the' minister of health, Dennis Timbrell, told representatives from. the, ngham iospital the 14 beds classified surplus by the ministry's ; new.: guideline, would remainopen as "float- ing. beds," said Dyer: at a meeting on Tuesday, May 8 in Wingham between minist- 1 \1 ribbon of excellence". It has consistently operated under the budget , and has more. than met all other health care guidelines. • "We have kept the bar- gain and now the govern- ment is trying to sever it unilaterally,", he charged. He urged the board not to give up on the idea of hauling the governmentinto court over the bed issue,, although it had been reported the previous night that hospital. solicitor Jack. Goodall doesn't think the board has a legal, case for an:injunction to halt µ/ d oa-ting beds a part of an HSO could begin - to market their : services effectively. Such .k centre he said would attract; physicians' to Wingham and Jpatients who: would have involvement in their own condition. Very few patients would be'sentto, referral centres because the equipment and doctors would be in Wingham. Spec- ial accident and surgery cases would still . be referred said Hayes,. ; . It is not inconceivable' that agree to put that money back into the budget until the litigation is settled,. Hayes may be forced to. " close the beds anyway, because there will be no money to operate them the cuts. It was noted the board could consult experts in this field, such as the lawyers,who successfflly..de-. fended a number of hospitals faced with closure several years ago. . Dr. R. B. Treleavenasked what will happen' if the. hospital runs out of money by continuing to operate full- scale in the face of budget restrictions, but --`the board decided to cross that bridge when it comes to it. "That's not the point," Dr. Wilkins told him. "We want the government -to: change its mind." Wingham.in• its central loca- ' fully," said Milosevic, "we'll achieve what we want.'•' , "But for now,' we have our hospital as it stands," he added. Mary Valr of the board said the 17 beds 'which are.- to close in the fall: can be worked into the negotiations with the ministry concerning the HSO.• . ' "Everything is still nego- tiable, . ego-tiable,.". she said. We're• in: :a very good position." tion in this area may become a, referral centre if it persues the FSO 'scheme; he observ- -ed. • Bori's Milosevic, member of the hospital board, com- mented the board and . its citizens actipn committee have achieved the ;goal of keeping the beds open and retaining ' hospital's funding as before. "There -are ..negotiations ahead and if we tread care-, aspitaI can keep beds government formula: he said, he can rework the figures 'and classify such patients as chronic because episodic care is atype of chronic care. This would show all 14 beds were needed ' for chronic care, Hayes told the meeting he has been "had" lily. the': government officials.' "I must apologize, what I hear in . one .location Is not what I hear in :another, "'' Hayes told the hlspital board at their April meeting, the ministry had assured hitn the funding for the 14 surplus. beds would be returned to the, hospital budget. Wine - ham Hospital would hear no more "nonsense" about bed closures and the hospital would be ' provided with • capital funding ;to update services at the . ospital to proceed :with a Health Ser- vice Organization scheme. Dyer told the meeting the ministry had promised it would return the ' funding while the hospital looked into. an HSO and would not close any more beds as they looked into the feasibility of the scheme in Winghatn. Mayes said he was told if the hospital borrowed. money` • to constrdct an addition. to; the hospital to persue an HSO and savings were .iden- tified when : this hospital en- tered the program, the sav- ings could beapplied to pay.. off the capital and interest. "The catch-22 in this is that the hospital must identi- fy savings :before they enter the program, quipped Hay- es. Dyer toldthe hospital rep- tesentatives.they could'. keep all I4', beds open, if they could operate within last year's budget because no hospital will receive less money this year than they did last year. Hayes said this would be impossible because • the hdspital • has already. stripped the excess, .froth their budget. tI find I must apologize for operating an efficient slip, which is the most reprehen- ,sible. thing .I .can 'think of, remarked Hayes. Dyer said he is prepared to go to cabinet to ask the funding be • reinstated at the Wingham Hospital for the surplus beds while the hos- pital looks at an HSO system. Dyer said the : government's policy to adhere to a guide- line of 4 beds per 1,000 population this year is mis- conveived as directed at bed ,closures. • The 'health'ministry has. been :restricted to a 4.5 per cent increasein its budget and the ministry must move finances . around within the system. The objective he said is- to -find surplus active treatment beds and close th'ern to allow the money to. be usedtoprovide more chromic, care beds. • . The hospital representa- tives did not understand how 14 : beds used : for active treatment could be declared surplus ' when the hospital has a full occupancy rate all the • time. Recently there were 103:patients in beds at the hospital. "Weare running.; a 100 -bed hospital keeping enough beds for all the people who. are sick, " said Dr. 'John Bradley,. "who takes the re- sponsibility when we no longer have 100'beds?" Dyer : told the meeting health care services are "insatiable" so some ,kind of constrictions must be placed on it. "There is no more mon- ey," he said. The ministry tried to increase, OHiP rates last year to find more money for \health care and it was rejected, '