A rally is set to be held in Chesley later this week to show solidarity with the community’s hospital and draw attention to emergency room closures.
A group called Chesley Hospital Community Support is planning the event. Group Chair Brenda Scott is hoping hundreds of people will attend.
She says they’ll have a petition there if attendees would like to sign it. It calls on the province and the South Bruce Grey Health Centre to keep the emergency department open.
Scott notes the group has the support of local council, and some service clubs.
She tells Bayshore Broadcasting News she is concerned the partial emergency department closure could lead to more closures in the future, saying, “If you lose your ER, you start to lose your medical staff and if you lose your medical staff, the hospital is not far behind.”
Scott adds, “Our first ask is a return to full-time ER services at the Chesley District Hospital.”
The group is also giving out lawn signs that say “Save our hospital.” Scott says those who want a sign can request one through the group’s Facebook page.
On March 7th, South Bruce Grey Health Centre President and CEO Michael Barrett gave a presentation to Arran-Elderslie council about the staffing situation and emergency department operations.
He told council the current hours of Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed overnight and weekends are going to continue.
In an interview with Bayshore Broadcasting News, Barrett says, “We don’t anticipate any change to the current level of service in the immediate future.” He adds, “We have a dedicated group of staff in Chesley, but we just don’t have enough of them make sure that we can open up beyond those hours that we’re operating now.”
From September 2019 to June 2022, the ER was closed overnight, and for a couple of months in late 2022, the emergency department closed completely due to a lack of staff.
Barrett says there’s a significant shortage of nurses, not just locally, but province wide.
He adds, “We want to make sure we can continue with the hours we’ve got before we look at any expansion beyond that.”
He notes the hospital does have enough physicians. “We have a small number of local physicians, but we also have a larger number of locum physicians– physicians that come from outside the community and work for different shifts at different times throughout the week, so physician staffing, we’re stable.”
Barrett says the community has also recruited two new family physicians.
It’s his view that the Ontario government is working to address the challenges in the system. He says, “The provincial government has done a really good job pulling together initiatives that provide incentives for new nurses to sign on with the hospital, stay with that hospital.”
Barrett says the government is providing some incentives for new grads and also additional supports for externs, which are student nurses. He also highlights the province’s efforts open up a number of new spaces in nursing schools and places in medical schools.
Barrett says, “We need to maintain what we’ve got– get over this hump where we have more resources coming into the system or more people coming into the system and then we’ll be in a better position, but that’s going to be several years away, before we get to that spot.”
When asked, Barrett says, there hasn’t been a hospital closure other than an amalgamation in Ontario for “many, many, years.”
He notes, as evidenced by the planned rally, people care passionately about their hospitals and want them to continue to be a key part of their community. “We want to make sure from a hospital perspective that we have four, strong viable sites.” (South Bruce Grey Health Centre has three other sites as well: Walkerton, Durham and Kincardine)
“We will not reopen to 24/7 service until we can do it safely and provide high quality patient care,” says Barrett.
Meanwhile, Barrett’s presentation to Arran-Elderslie council also included an update on hospital foundation fundraising efforts to purchase equipment, particularly an x-ray machine and renovated suite.