April Fools Day next year won’t be any joke for physiotherapy out-patients looking for service at the Walkerton, Chesley or Durham hospitals.
There won’t be any.
The President and CEO of the South Bruce Grey Health Centre Paul Davies says they will no longer provide the outpatient services.
However in-patient services will continue as normal.
Outpatients will have to find private physiotherapy services elsewhere in their respective communities.
This is different that what is available at Kincardine where a private firm is offering both services but at a cost to non-hospital patients.
Davies says the decision was made as part of a plan to achieve a balanced budget in the 2009/10 fiscal year.
Davies says the move is unfortunate but necessary at the hospitals.
He says the changes will result in a staff reduction, affecting seven personnel.
However Davies hopes the reductions can be mitigated through early retirements and voluntary exits between now and next April.
In a prepared news release earlier this month, Warren (Smokey) Thomas, President of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, said the decision would hurt patients, and was another example of the withering away of the public health care system in our communities.
Thomas says the hospital’s administration has broken faith with the public it is paid to serve.
