Rural Care Crisis

What are the alternatives? better cost effective delivery systems maybe QJ

Forced to close; Newbury hospital loses outpatient physiotherapy
Posted By CHIP MARTIN

In a move called devastating to its local community, one of Ontario's smallest hospitals is being forced to close its outpatient physiotherapy program to balance its budget.
That means many of the 23,000 rural, small-town and elderly residents served by Four Counties Health Services in Newbury will have to travel farther and pay from their own pockets to replace the service. Or do without.

"This will have a huge impact," said Yvonne Lambert, board chairperson of the Middlesex Hospital Alliance that operates the 16-bed facility in Newbury. The physiotherapy service is slated to end Sept. 1.
"These are retired people, farmers and small businesspersons and less than a quarter of them have private (health) coverage" to cover the cost of private clinics. And the closest private clinic is 35 minutes away.
The announcement comes on the eve of today's provincial budget, expected to have little new money for health care.
New funding is unlikely despite hospital bed shortages across the London region and elsewhere because of a shortage of long-term and chronic-care beds.
For the Four Counties area, there's a slim chance residents will find replacement service at a hospital in Chatham covered by government health care, Lambert said. Private clinics are more likely.
Lambert said to balance its $10-million operating budget, Four Counties has had to chop $500,000, of which $300,000 is the 38-year-old outpatient clinic with three physiotherapists, an assistant and a manager shared with Strathroy-Middlesex hospital. The clinic had 6,350 outpatient visits last year.
"In a small hospital it is very hard to cut anything," Lambert said. She said talks about the situation continue with the Southwest Local Health Integration Network.
Monte McNaughton, a Newbury businessperson, described the closing as "devastating for patients, for the local economy and health care in Ontario."
McNaughton, a board member who ran for the Progressive Conservatives against local Liberal MPP Maria Van Bommel (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex), said provincial Liberals will buy 22 Made-in-Scotland buses for Toronto but won't support health care for local residents.
Advertisement

"It just doesn't make sense and is a further slap in the face to our rural communities," he said.
Conservative health critic Elizabeth Witmer said the Four Counties situation "is happening across the province."
She said termination of services "has a very negative impact on people" and the government should allow private delivery of health care covered by government insurance.