Mayor says meeting went well

By Taylor Broderick

BELLEVILLE – The mayor of Prince Edward County Robert Quaiff says he’s happy with what came out of a meeting with Ontario’s health minister on Tuesday afternoon.

Quaiff had a meeting in Toronto at the Fairmont Royal York hotel with the Minister of Health and Long Term Care Dr. Eric Hoskins to discuss the possibility of a new hospital in Picton.

“In an effort to maintain a vibrant, growing community with the ability to provide integrated and sustainable quality healthcare to its citizens and for future generations we respectively requested [Dr. Hoskins] that the Ministry of Health and Long Term care commit to a new hospital in Picton,” Quaiff said.

Quaiff says Hoskins was very impressed with how well the health care dollars are already being spent in Prince Edward County with the McFarland H J Memorial Home and finding a location for the Family Health Team.

“He’s congratulated us on being sort of like a model for Ontario with the whole health care concept,” Quaiff said.

Nothing is decided yet about the hospital because Dr. Hoskins wants to be sure current health care services in the area won’t be negatively affected.

“[The meeting] was very promising and as far as the cutbacks to the services at hospitals, I’m optimistic that that’s going to take a while because he doesn’t want to do anything sudden that will disrupt services,” Quaiff said. “He wants to have all of the issues on the table before him and take his time to make sure that the decisions that they’re going to make is not going to hurt the rural hospital services that we currently offer.”

In terms of the finances, Quaiff says as far as he understands the overall budget for the hospital would be around $40 million and Prince Edward County will be responsible for raising $12 million of it.

Quaiff says he believes the request for the hospital will not be denied because Hoskins and the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care understand the importance of the community having a good quality hospital with good quality service.

“Hopefully we’ll get to a resolution that will become a win-win for the entire (Quinte Health Care) corporation,” Quaiff said.