HOSPITAL CUT-BACKS AND FOOD BANK DEMAND

While the gad-about candidates for this year’s municipal elections, in Gravenhurst, seem to be preoccupied with getting elected only.....by posting really big and stupid looking signs, and coming up with fanciful plans for a main street wonderland, my support goes to the candidate who puts “Hospital Cut-backs” and “Food Bank Demand,” ahead on their list of priorities, beyond the juvenile boasting about their thoroughly amazing personal biographies.....which seems pretty much a high school tactic for winning friends and influencing others. In my own years covering municipal governments for the local press, I’ve come across some real political duds with great resumes......who didn’t live up to any of their past accomplishments. Don’t put all your faith in prior achievements.

Well, here’s the thing folks. We have a hospital in peril. I have written frequently about this but I’ll throw it out once more. Muskoka councils have welcomed with open arms, the senior citizens of the world, to come and settle in this lakeland paradise. They’ve done so even when it has been clearly known, published and protested, that cut-backs in local health care services were imminent and occurring. It seems a tad irresponsible, and dangerous, to be encouraging retirees to make their homes in a region that is facing such serious health care problems. I bet on the plethora of promotions, to get these developments here, in the first place, there was more than a little emphasis on “and yes, we’ve got a hospital close by.” The same promotion is used over and over again to attract new industry, commerce, and development generally. “We have a hospital!”

I am disgusted by the bare minimum of protest from local councillors, who have all in some way, participated in approvals, to endorse, welcome and glad hand all over the place, senior developments especially, knowing there were escalating problems ten miles north. It may be time now, to pay attention to editorials in the Gravenhurst Banner and The Bracebridge Examiner, that have for many months been reminding us of imminent problems and potential future departmental closures. Most recently it was the cafeteria. We’re not in the safe haven anymore, so generously offered us for many decades, by the staunch, unyielding willpower of Frank Miller, former MPP, and Frank Henry, former administrator of South Muskoka Memorial Hospital, who suffered greatly for so long, keeping our hospital building and services safe and sound. There are some, and I am one of them, who believe if it wasn’t for these two brave souls, it might have already closed. Only their closest friends and family know how hospital issues wore these men down, and threatened their own health. I won’t let anyone forget how folks like the “two Franks” kept our communities up to speed with quality health care. We owe the memory of these fine chaps, to carry on the fight to keep our hospital from the undertow of the present health care dilemma in this province. Please find out more about what our council can do to save the hospital from further cut-backs. It is your responsibility and in the next four years you will have no choice but to have an opinion, and a solution.

How many councillors know for fact, the present burden of the Salvation Army Food Bank? How many have thought it important enough, to find out what the demands of the day are, and what expectations are in the coming months of this recessionary period. The only thing that has changed in actuality, between the Town Hall and the Food Bank today, is that instead of a half block distance between the two, now it’s separated by multiple blocks of general indifference. But the Food Bank is not going away any time soon, and if council hopefuls want to represent their town responsibly, not just taking up space at the council table, and showing up for grip and grins all over the urban landscape, ask for a meeting with the Salvation Army Captain, and find out first hand how many clients require food bank assistance. Ask about the fear of shortfalls, when food drives are not taking place and the shelves are depleted. Put yourself in the shoes of these wonderful people, who try so hard, to feed our citizens in need. Think how heart-breaking it is at times, having to thin out provisions, to maintain a balance for all clients. Imagine if you can, going hungry in a community that seems to have so much to be pleased about. Stand out on the wharf at Sagamo Park, and see the show of prosperity.....and then recall our hometown’s need for a Food Bank in a small commercial corner, just over the hillside. Two realities very far apart. What we are most prosperous with in this town, is having the abundance of kindly souls, who generously volunteer to help their friends and neighbors get by, during the difficult times. That’s the hometown I’m proud to be associated. My greatest joy would be to discover that a new Gravenhurst Council will want to be good neighbors as well, and the first step, is to make a relationship where there has been the bare minimum.

The people who run the Salvation Army Food Bank are constituents as are their clients, and their opinions are important to understanding what we have and will face in this wonderful hometown, long into the future. And don’t think that you can get away with suggesting, “Ah, if it closed down, so would the demand. They’d just get a job and earn their own grocery money.” That’s just faulty logic. Our citizens are in need. There’s more to governing this town than catering to developers and debating infrastructure. We need to be a good neighbor town, and this revamping needs to come from the top......in the form of old fashioned leadership.