Letter to the Editor
The Editor,
I attended Tuesday night’s Public Meeting against downsizing OUR Meaford Hospital.
Excellent turn out. Excellent points by our doctors, Training Base Rep., and individuals. Grey Bruce Health Services CEO and Meaford Hospital Board Chair are between a rock and a hard place. LHIN tells them ‘Funding Formula’ has changed, meaning more budgets cuts. They have no choice but to cut back because they are not permitted to run deficits. The ‘Funding formula’ was changed from a ‘NEEDS’ formula to ‘fixed budget’ formula.
There were a couple of elephants in the hall:
Elephant 1, invisible, representative of LHIN to explain reasons for cutbacks.
Elephant 2, MP Larry Miller and MPP Bill Walker, both MIA (missing in action).
Please permit me to use an allegory to make my point.
There are Natural Laws, such as weather, earthquakes, gravity, that we humans cannot change.
Then we have the Laws passed by our politicians that CAN be changed at the whim of changing ideologies and/or by whoever has the greatest clout with our ruling masters.
Take a tsunami, a tidal wave caused by an undersea earthquake far off our shores. We can spot it now, but cannot stop it, just warn people to escape to higher ground.
The earthquake, caused by the Federal Government in far-off Ottawa by changing the ‘Funding Formula’ to the provinces, causes the tsunami, the provincial government changing their ‘Funding Formula’ in response to the earthquake from Ottawa, with MUNICIPAL governments facing the full force of the approaching tsunami with no other alternative than destroying communities with cutbacks in funding of ESSENTIAL services. No higher ground for us.
The difference between the NATURAL Laws and human Laws is that WE the PEOPLE can change these Laws by prevailing on our ELECTED politicians or by replacing them.
I have yet to see our MP Larry Miller, whose government in Ottawa changed the Federal Funding Formula of the Canada Health Act a few years ago (when they had a majority in Ottawa), attend ANY of these meetings to explain their actions or give advice on how to deal with the effects of their funding changes.
The same applies to our MPP Bill Walker. He will be front and center at the yearly Scare crow Parade for a photo op, but is MISSING IN ACTION when the chips are down.
Never mind the LHIN. This nebulous entity that is, by name definition, ‘LOCAL HEALTH INTEGRATION NETWORK’, is nowhere to be found to be integrating anything, or at least to attend meetings by people affected by their rulings and explain the reasons for the funding cutbacks.
But, it is not only our rural/small town hospitals that are under constant attack. Our (?) Queens Park Masters are causing havoc with our Schools and Retirement homes as well. It almost seems as though the ONLY things that matter in this province are the ‘NEEDS’ of the Centre of the Universe, Toronto, to the south of us. Rural Ontario and the North can be safely ignored, unless they need the food we grow and/or the gravel they need and the ores we mine.
Of course, our hospitals, schools, retirement homes, etc. have to be run efficiently and with accountability. But I believe that it is high time that the corporate sector, and especially the banking sector with their obscene profits, share the burden and become part of the COMMUNITY and contribute their fair share HERE, rather than send it to offshore tax havens with the connivance of the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency).
Sincerely,
Karl Braeker, Meaford
