Impressive speakers at final PEC hospital ‘Friends’ meeting

The “Friends” of Prince Edward Health Services will hold their final annual general meeting Thursday, April 21 at 7 p.m. at the Community Centre (arena) in Picton.
For various reasons the “Friends” board has made a decision to disband at this time. The “Friends” were first organized by Myrna Wood and Eleanor Lindsay MacDonald on April 21, 2001.They brought together a group 15 concerned citizens to act as a “watchdog” for healthcare in Prince Edward County, especially PECM Hospital. Their concerns 10 years ago were no different than they are today, in particular the future of our hospital with threatened future cutbacks and a concern that QHC is not being sensitive to the needs of hospital users. PECMH recently lost three beds to QHC Belleville. To her credit, QHC CEO Mary Clare Egberts has stated that QHC will probably look at the bed situation again in 3-6 months. Any of us who follow healthcare closely know that there is a high degree of probability that our hospital will lose more beds. Hopefully County stakeholders will remain vigilant. Even though this is the last AGM for “The Friends”, chair Barb Proctor has put together an impressive list of speakers. Katherine Stansfield, QHC Director of Patient Care Services will be speaking on Redevelopment-PECMH, QHC. Nancy Parks, Executive Director of Hospice Prince Edward will be speaking on the future of Pallative Care in Prince Edward County. Ross Sutherland RN and author of “False Positive – Canadian Medical Labs” will also speak. This topic in particular might be interesting to many of us as Ross talks about Private Labs.
Here in Prince Edward County and throughout Rural Ontario it is no secret that the few Private Labs that we have offer less than OPTIMAL service to our stakeholders. We hope that you will join us for a very informative evening on Healthcare in Prince Edward County. Refreshments will be served.
Fran Renoy, Picton