In the past several weeks, there has been plenty of positive progress on the health-care front in Muskoka. The tireless effort that goes into meeting the perennially daunting challenge of physician recruitment has paid dividends. Following a two-year search we have a pathologist, and another general surgeon has recently been added to the roster.

After many months of rationalization and uncertainty about the direction of further budgetary belt-tightening, it should come as a comfort that high-calibre professionals find Muskoka an attractive place to practise medicine. It is also a credit to the ongoing efforts of hospital and community officials who work behind the scenes to bring these physicians here.

Now, what would give people even more proof that we are headed in the right direction is some community consultation when it comes to balancing the budget. Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare (MAHC) still has a $600,000 projected operating budget shortfall to overcome.

Instead of frank and open discussion about what direction we may be taking, the public receives the same tired response from administration:  we need to identify some new efficiencies. After years of cracking down on the deficit, we still really don’t know what that means.

Now we have a consulting firm hired to recommend how we can reduce costs without reducing services. But Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare has an annoying habit of not disclosing things to the public. Trying to find out the exact cost ramifications of decisions is sometimes as tough as finding a family doctor.

We asked MAHC CEO Barry Lockhart what the consultants will cost. We could not get a straight answer. We were told it was less than $100,000. Thanks for the specifics.

In the last year, MAHC made a point of holding public information sessions to settle concerns that quality health-care in Muskoka was in jeopardy. It would have been more worthwhile to drop the PR charade and make a sincere effort to ask people what they think. Will these consultants incorporate a community consultation component? Probably not.

We do hope that, unlike the doses of pacifying public relations that MAHC has a penchant for delivering, this consultant exercise is sincere and proves fruitful. For months, in fact years, hospital administrators have laid down plans to reduce costs. What’s happened to those ideas? We would hate to think that consultants will be paid to confirm pre-determined budget “efficiencies” for the sake of administration having a scapegoat to justify future actions.

B.H.