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Polls 2 The Huron Expositor • July 29, 2009
News
Report outlines strategies to keep ERs alive
From Page 1
Barrett noted that the decision to
scale back the hours at the Sea -
forth ER, which took effect several
months ago, came from the Huron -
Perth Healthcare Alliance.
"It's wasn't about funding, it was
about a shortage of health hu-
man resources," Barrett said. "We
know„ in Seaforth we've got the
shortage of nurses, which has re-
sulted in the reduction of operat-
ing hours for the hospital. But it's
a challenge that we've got in a lot
of small emergency departments
around the southwest LHIN. So
it's a tremendous challenge."
Barrett said over the past four
months, LHIN has conducted a
comprehensive emergency de-
partment human, resources study,
which outlined strategies to help
address the issue of keeping ERs
open.
"Half of the strategies relate to
.the human resourceside, so re-
cruitment, retention, leadership
and the other half looks at system
design, so it's about if is there a
better way to operate emergency
rooms across the LHIN," Barrett
said.
Now, the LHIN will be discuss-
ing the results of the study with
health care providers and focus
on improving current human re-
sources issues and maximizing .
the accessibility and qualityof
emergency services, Barrett said.
The meeting last week was pre-
sented • in the form of an open
house, where residents could lis-
ten in on one of four 15 minute
presentations about some of the
work LHIN is currently undertak-
ing.
Julie Girard, team lead for plan- •
ning and integration at the LHIN,
spoke about how health care will
be administered in the future.
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• List of Prescription Medicines
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Each person wanting to bec.
of the new physicia
come to a clinic CO
Dr. Curtis and Dr. Schmitz will not be acc
. patients who already have a family
within 80 km of Clinton.
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hey will each be accepting between 300 - 500 new patients.
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"There are some things we need
to think about shifting, because
the biggest issue is access to infor-
mation," Girard said, noting that
currently, the public may -find ac-
cess to health information through
the Community Care Access Cen-
tre or the Southwestern Ontario
Telehealth Network.
But the plan is to create a better
consistency among the informa-
tion available to the public, she
said.
"The part we need to work on is
really ensuring that that informa-
tion is screened and is consistent
for everyone so the information
that you're obtaining from the
Southwest LHIN web site is the
same information that your doctor
or nurse might be accessing," Gi-
rard said.
This will include creating an
electronic health record for each
person, which may be accessed by
health care professionals over the
Internet.
The plan is set to be realized by
2015, Girard said, adding that the
LHIN doesn't yet know how the
recent e -Health spending scan- .
dal will affect the timeline of the
plan.
Arena fundraising and
building committees
meeting tonight
From Page 1
"Each government — federal, pro-
vincial and municipal are each
contributing one-third of the cost,"
Flowers said. "The municipality
has come up with 50 per cent (of
approximately $348,000) but (the
public) has to come up with 50 per
cent too."
The decision to form the two
committees came from suggestions
from about two dozen members of
the community who attended the
meeting last week, including rep-
resentatives from Seaforth Stars
Minor Hockey Association and the
Seaforth and District Ringette As-
sociation.
Huron East Clerk -Administrator
Jack McLachlan also noted that
the provincial and federal grant
money needs to be spent by 2011
and it would be best if construc-
tion on the expansion began in
winter 2010, with renovations to
the lobby holding off until the end
of hockey season.
A preliminary drawing of a pro-
posed expansion from 2002 was
shown during last week's meeting,
with new dressing rooms and pub-
lic washrooms placed behind the
players' bench, on the other side of
the bleachers.
Many attending the meeting
were concerned they'd be too far
from the bleachers and most, in-
cluding Flowers, agreed the 2002
drawing needed to be updated.
"They were great at the time, but
now things have changed," Flow-
ers said. "Girls' ringette and girls'
hockey are both big and getting
bigger. We need to have that input
from user groups and members
of the community and we need to
be able to cater to their needs as
well."
Dance floor fight has police
looking to public for help
Huron OPP are asking for the as-
sistance of the public in an assault
investigation after a 22 -year-old
Seaforth man was struckin the
face while dancing at the Seaforth
Community Centre on July 11 at
12:45 a.m.
The man was attending a func-
tion at the community centre and
was dancing when someone came
out of the crowds and struck him
in the f€ e, knocking him to the
ground.
Police and paramedics were
called when the man was bleeding
from his injury. He was transport-
ed to Seaforth Community Hospi-
tal to receive medical attention.
Anyone with related information
is asked to call the Huron OPP at
1-888-310-1122 or Crime Stoppers
at 1 -800 -222 -TIPS.
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