Over 300 people attended a meeting organized by Friends of Kincardine Hospital.
It wants community support to see if the hospital should separate from the South Bruce-Grey Health Centre and become a stand-alone facility.
The meeting took place last night at the Davidson Centre.
The Friends are upset about service reductions at the hospital and the conduct of South Bruce-Grey CEO Paul Davies.
They believe services like physiotherapy and obstetrics have been cut in Kincardine to help balance the budget and consolidate services in Walkerton.
They also want CEO Paul Davies to resign for a variety of reasons.
One of the reasons is Davies allegedly bullying hospital staff.
Members of both Friends of the Hospital and the general public addressed the crowd during the two-hour meeting.
Friends co-Chair Greg McLelland believes they have the support they need from the community to develop a business plan to see if the hospital could operate successfully on its own.
A motion to do that was approved with a show of hands from the audience.
McLelland says they will examine the financial information, and even if they discover the hospital couldn’t operate independently, they still want Davies to resign and for the board structure to change.
Kincardine currently has two representatives on the 21 member South Bruce-Grey Board.
The Tiverton District Ratepayer’s Association is backing Friends of the Hospital.
Member Ed Roberts says he’ll be looking into the information they need to develop the business plan and into the concerns over CEO Paul Davies.
Roberts says if there is truth to those concerns, they’ll bring them to someone who has influence over the CEO.
Friends of Kincardine Hospital are hoping to get the attention of the Local Health Integration Network and Health Minister David Caplan.
Caplan has the authority to allow changes in how hospitals are governed.
Dr. Gary Gurbin is pleased with the support from the community at the meeting.
He says it was gratifying to see a large cross section of local residents show up in support of a health care facility.
A local businessman is also supporting the effort.
Kincardine Cable TV Manager Bryan Walden says a quality hospital is needed for a community to exist.
He says if there is any decline in the quality of hospital service, it will be detrimental to residents and make it difficult to get people to move to Kincardine.
Organized Labour is also throwing its support behind Friends of Kincardine Hospital.
Grey Bruce Labour Council President Dave Trumble says it feels like history is unfortunately repeating itself.
Trumble was a member of the former District Health Council 12 years ago when the provincial Hospital Services Restructuring Commission proposed closing the Kincardine Hospital.
Trumble says he protested the recommendation back then and it cost him his seat on the council.
He wants the Friends of Kincardine Hospital to know labour is supporting them and union members will provide volunteer support.
Only one audience member at the meeting expressed skepticism about the idea of getting the hospital.
Keith King, a resident of a rural area of Kincardine warned against making any rash decisions.
He says the cost of de-amalgamating from South Bruce-Grey should be found out before anything else is done.
King was not willing to speak to reporters about his comments.
The friends are circulating petitions asking for support in de-amalgamating from the South Bruce-Grey Health Centre.
They also had boxes at the meeting where members of the public could donate change towards their efforts.
Greg McLelland, Dr. Gurbin, and Ed Roberts will be on this morning’s edition of Sounding Board at 10:30 am on 98 The Beach.
