From Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare
As hospital redevelopment continues to evolve, Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare (MAHC) is sharing the details of the proposed Made-in-Muskoka Healthcare system, a different model of care for the future that positions Muskoka’s new hospitals to enhance the quality of local healthcare and bring new services to the area and beyond the walls of the hospitals.
The new innovative model has resulted from months of in-depth and inclusive planning efforts with team members including staff, physicians and midwives, volunteers, patients and family members and key healthcare partners to explore ways to create a sustainable, affordable and quality-focused approach to service delivery in two new hospitals in Bracebridge and Huntsville.
“Patients we serve across all of our communities are very important to us, and so is the outstanding team of providers and support staff that are our legacy of exceptional care,” says President & CEO Cheryl Harrison. “Our planning has been thoughtful to respond to the challenges we are facing. These include ongoing healthcare worker shortages since the pandemic, operational challenges with small volume programs and services, and a prescribed budget for building the two new hospitals.”
The Made-in-Muskoka Healthcare system is a creative and more efficient solution to build two specialized hospitals that are complementary to each other rather than identical. Each hospital will include full-service Emergency Departments and inpatient beds, but with less duplication of services in the region. Enhanced community outreach will provide new services closer to home in outlying communities like Almaguin Highlands and Gravenhurst through expanded partnerships with community health agencies including Family Health Teams and Health Hubs.
“We recognize this is proposing a different structure from the status quo in Muskoka for the past 50-plus years,” says Harrison. “We are in a very changed environment since the pandemic with a chronic shortage in healthcare workers that causes repeated service disruptions where we have to single site services when we can’t ensure safe medical coverage. Staggering post-pandemic inflation has driven a 50% increase in healthcare construction costs, and this means that collectively we cannot afford to build our facilities exactly how they are today. Solving these challenges for decades to come has taken creative thinking to find a way to provide the same services, but differently and more efficiently. Our goal is to develop a healthcare delivery model that is realistic, affordable, and ensures the long-term sustainability of our hospitals and high-quality care. Our focus has been on the needs of the populations that we serve. This means to keep services here, we need to think differently from how things have been done in the past.”
The Made-in-Muskoka Healthcare model concentrates day surgeries and other outpatient surgical procedures, as well most outpatient exams such as non-urgent imaging, within a leading edge Ambulatory & Surgical Centre on a new location in Bracebridge. The 24-7 Emergency Department activity would be supported by full diagnostics and medical specialist support, 14 inpatient beds in single patient rooms for short-stay admissions, and four Intensive Care Unit beds. The model envisions surgical expansion, including orthopedic joint replacements in the future, closer to home.
Inpatient care including obstetrical labour and delivery is concentrated in Huntsville with 139 beds for acute care for longer stays, the addition of specialized rehabilitation care to help patients recover from stroke locally, and new reactivation care to ensure patients leaving hospital are equipped to transition home successfully. As well, a higher level Intensive Care Unit growing to 10 beds will keep more advanced, critical care patients in Muskoka. Just like in Bracebridge, the 24-7 Emergency Department also has access to surgery and full diagnostics. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) services for the entire region are also included.
“We believe that this new approach will meet the needs of the populations that we serve, and that it will be more sustainable and affordable than our current approach,” adds Harrison. “It will improve provider experience and ensure our team members can work to the top of their scope and skillset, and allows us to explore new service areas that would not have been possible otherwise.”
The future-focused model will benefit from continued advancements in medicine and virtual technology, and new hospitals that are built green and are flexible in design. A robust and safe transportation system would be developed between the two sites to ensure seamless patient care, while also supporting the travel needs of families and staff.
“There are different reactions as we socialize a new model for the future,” says Harrison. “We are keen to listen and work together to develop the best model for the future that meets the needs of our communities, leverages a significant opportunity to build new hospitals, and gives the best care locally for future generations.”
Community members are encouraged to learn more about how this new model will create a stronger healthcare system at upcoming community chats taking place across the region, both in person and virtually, from January 29 to February 7, 2024. Please visit www.mahc.ca/communitychats for more information and to register to attend a virtual chat via Zoom.
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Mary Joanne Garvey says
I have read with some amazement the complete reversal of the two-hospital model, that Muskoka was promised by Doug Ford, during the last election. It seems this new plan is to be presented by the MAHC Hospital Board. As it appears to be a flawed model I wanted to investigate who the members are, how they were chosen, and what qualifications are required. I also wondered do they represent.
The first qualification for a hospital board member is that he/she/they be a member of the community. Beyond that, the board picks members who have the skills and qualities that the board feels are needed.
I read through the descriptions of the current board members and a lot of their past accomplishments are wonderful. I don’t know what their ties to our community are however, because very little was mentioned about this mandatory requirement in the background provided. I would like to know how many are full time residents of Muskoka, and for how long. I would like to know how many have worked here, and for how long. I would like to know what they have contributed to this community.
Why do I think that is important? After living and working here for many years, I see three main groups who live and/or own property here.
• The first is summer residents or cottagers. They are a significant part of our community. They are generous with their support and their very presence enriches the life of our local communities.
• In recent years we have had an influx of retirees who have moved here full time. Many of them have volunteered within our community and have put time and effort into making it a better place to live.
• The third group is the “locals”. We were born here or spent most of their working life here. We are professionals, small business owners, employees and labourers. We are not always high profile or affluent; but we make the communities of Muskoka a great place to live.
This third group seems to be under represented on the Hospital Board and I fear that it has led to poor decision-making.
Emergency care is crucial and can be well served under the proposed model…or many others. Continuing care is another matter. Our resident families with low or moderate incomes will suffer economic hardship is they have family members in the hospital recovering from accidents, or illness and they have to travel or miss work to be with them. Seniors (and our wonderful retirees are not aging backwards) will have difficulty travelling a great distance to be with an ailing partner or friend. If the medical community drifts toward the one continuing care centre instead of staying in all three large centres, most of us will be travelling for routine appointments.
I hope that the MAHC Board will revisit this plan, and before they do, that they make sure that the Board actually understands and represents all of Muskoka.
Joanne Garvey
John Whitty says
It seems Muskoka residents have been misled for years with the promise of keeping two full services hospitals in Muskoka.
That promise now appears to be just a ruse to placate those in the southern 2/3 of Muskoka.
It seems the hidden agenda of just one full service hospital was always the case.
It seems there are not-so-hidden agendas at MAHC and also the airport.
Both boards should be fired.
We were also promised two runways will be maintained at Muskoka airport.
One of them was simply being “moved.”
The alternate runway presented to councillors in 2020 never was a viable option.
Nothing to do with cost as claimed.
The alternate was just a ruse by airport management to fool councillors into closing a far superior, existing, inexpensive runway. For no reason at all.
Councillors are aware they have been misled and their time wasted for years by current airport management.
Lives will be lost going backwards with the lack of local hospital services in 2/3 of Muskoka.
Lives will also be lost at the airport due to the backwards, unsafe actions from dangerously incompetent airport management.
There have already been accidents at the airport due to the closures.
Why is safety not the top priority in Muskoka?
People in the southern 2/3 of Muskoka will have to go elsewhere as a result of this new hospital model.
Just like pilots often have to go elsewhere now since the usability and safety of Muskoka airport has been decimated.
https://southmuskoka.doppleronline.ca/airport-changes-to-cost-an-extra-343200/
https://southmuskoka.doppleronline.ca/muskoka-airport-appoints-new-bod-members/
https://johnwhitty3.wordpress.com/2023/07/11/snake-oil-salesmen-selling-to-the-gullible/
Karen A Insley says
(This was also posted in Doppler North under the article SM Dr.’s Letter to MAHC’s plan)
How long has this been going on? Do we have a new super Hospital yet? Where’s the MRI?
Perhaps we should all go to Barrie or North Bay, whichever’s 90 min or less.
Does this plan, more than a decade later, change the fact that 2 old tires do not make a new one.
Perhaps starting at the beginning, Canada’s ‘health services’ are in a shambles, partially due to predictive models, skewed/foreign stats, journal articles fabricating for political gain over the last 4 years. That’s just one flavour; federal politics. What about local politics? Will this be continued, will we look forward to the next episode from; let’s do a study, let’s consult, let’s change the name, let’s debate the design and location….
Meanwhile, do we, or will we have the resources/measurement tools to ‘reduce the meantime between failures’?
Garth Eliot says
Questions: Where do the key hospital decisions get made? Do the people making them live in Muskoka?
What percentage live in the northern part and what percentage live in the southern part?
Why don’t we have two hospitals each with their own board?
Many of the board members might be capable – but elected- volunteers?
.