Here we go again. Yet another specialist is leaving our community citing a lack of resources as the primary reason for his decision. Scary, isn’t it?

In May we lost our radiologist and we also learned that our community lab services may be going south.

There was a time when the regionalization of services was touted as a way of sharing resources and ensuring more quality and specialty care could be sustained for those of us not living in large urban centers. The idea was that we would be able to fund regional health care more purposefully and save money on things like administration and apply it to strengthen our medical services. We hoped that the distances we’d have to travel to get the care we required would be somehow diminished. We were told that economies of scale would benefit the area.

 It may have seemed sound on paper, but approximately two years into the process of developing a regional funding body and the amalgamation of both the Huntsville and Bracebridge hospitals and the Burk’s Falls health clinic, and we’re still losing specialists and perhaps our voice around a table stacked with bigger players.

Rural families struck with an illness are having to leave the community in order to get their loved ones specialized care, take time off work, disrupt the family home and try to find lodgings in order to be close by and advocate for their family member.

That is not the type of health care we envision. Administrators will argue ad nauseam that rural hospitals cannot provide all things to all people. They tell us they are given limited budgets to serve their rural populations, and while that may be the case, they need to be a lot more transparent and less reactionary with the public and the medical community at large about what services they consider expendable. Who is making those decisions and based on what criteria? Are we taking into consideration the fact that Muskoka’s population is older than the provincial average? Are we paying heed to studies conducted by our public health agency warning us that respiratory illnesses are on the rise as we lose a general internist who specialized in respirology? Are we going to fill that position, or will the 500 people he counted as his patients have to go on a waiting list and travel outside of the area to get the service?

Who is making a case for the fact that having specialists such as Dr. Bruno and Dr. Bibeau moving out of communities like ours will simply put more strain on the waiting lists in more populated areas?

Why is it that Muskoka is rated as a prime destination yet our health care is not? How will those who consider this area a retirement haven be served into the future?

How is it that Canada Post can spend up to $600 million dollars on assessing rural mailboxes while rural hospitals like ours face a $2 million deficit?

Where are our provincial and federal representatives, where are our leaders on these issues, and who is going to advocate for the patients in this area who’ve just lost their specialist?

T.d.V.