Armour Mayor Rod Ward, who also serves as Chair of Almaguin Highlands Health Council, said while he does not begrudge the Bracebridge Hospital for getting an additional 10 beds, Almaguin taxpayers are maxed out.
On October 10, the board of Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare approved the Stage 1.3 capital redevelopment plan, including an additional 10 beds for the Bracebridge Hospital site. The decision will enable MAHC to move forward with its submission to the Province in November. The addition of the beds had also garnered a nod of approval from MPP Graydon Smith, 45 South Muskoka physicians as well as the mayors of Gravenhurst, Bracebridge and Huntsville, and a South Muskoka grassroots group formed due to concerns with the model.
“We completely support the hospital redevelopment model, and we always have,” said Ward. “Our concern is this new cost, this new $50M dollars, which includes another $10M of local share, was not part of the original discussion for local share. So, up here in the Almaguin Highlands, we’re just not in a position to go back to our taxpayers after having committed to a $9.5M contribution ourselves to ask for more because we weren’t expecting the additional 10 beds… we just don’t have any more money to contribute to the local share.”
While it was understood that MPP Graydon Smith would be trying to secure the additional funds for the ten beds, nothing has been written in stone. “We’re assuming that they’re going to be asking for a percentage of that to be local share, and that’s why we just want to get ahead of it and make a statement that we just don’t have any more money to put toward local share. We’re maxed out,” said Ward.
Ward reiterated that from day one, they’ve been supportive of MAHC’s plans, and that has not changed.
He said he suspects MAHC will move forward with Stage 1.3 application as long as they are confident that most of the local share funds are there because in the grand scheme of things an additional $10M as a percentage of the $225M local share is not that much. “So I think they could still move forward with the application. The issue is going to be that they still have a gap to close. That discussion has to happen still.”
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