It's not a hospital closure! It's a voluntary funding integration!

Hey all you silly St. Joseph Island people!

You think Sault Area Hospital (SAH) and the North East Local Health Integration Network (LE LHIN) are planning to close your hospital?

Naw.

That's not the way that NE LHIN Board Chair Mathilde Gravelle Bazinet sees it at all.

This is no hospital closure, Bazinet assured more than 400 people last night at the Desbarats Community Centre.

It's just a little "voluntary funding integration" thing. This extraordinary bit of LHIN-speak was appropriate, she insisted, because Matthews Memorial Hospital is a satellite facility, not a stand-alone hospital.

While Bazinet was bafflegabbing, the Islanders and North Shore folk in attendance were talking straight as the D Line.

Their operative phrase at last night's meeting on the proposed closure of Matthews Memorial Hospital was "intractable resistance."

Even Sault Area Hospital Chief Executive Officer Ron Gagnon used it to describe East Algoma's reaction to closing its hospital.

"I like this phrase that was used by the consultants - of intractable resistance," added St. Joseph Township Reeve Jody Wildman. "Well, get used to it."

Well over 400 people crammed the Desbarats arena for last night's meeting.

A lot more wanted to be there but couldn't fit in the room.

Instead, they stood on the stairs or in the foyer downstairs.

There were 320 seats in the room and at least fifty more people stuffed into the space at the back

For most, there was only issue to be discussed - the fate of Matthews Memorial Hospital, a satellite facility of Sault Area Hospital located in Richards Landing.

Reeve Wildman called the proposal to close the hospital an attack on rural health care and an attack on rural life.

His remarks were greeted with much applause.

"We understand the financial constraints that Sault Area Hospital is under," Wildman said in his summarizing remarks.

"That is a provincial construct and that's something that was pointed out here tonight," the reeve said. "That is something we need to fight the province on."

Wildman said the people who use Matthews Memorial have offered to work with Sault Area Hospital to try to save the island hospital.

He questioned the consultant's objectivity and relevant knowledge of the situation.

"To hear, in the consultants' words, we are a strange, exotic fruit - no I'm not joking. I don't think it was me personally, but to hear that kind of condescending language," the reeve said.

Afterward, Wildman told how the consultants approached him about one year ago for input on how Matthews Memorial could be made more cost-efficient.

"They asked me for alternatives and I'm a municipal politician, I don't work in health care and I have no expertise in how to run a hospital," he said. "I basically asked them for examples and that's when they offered examples of ones that were not even offering the health care that we have."

Wildman asked the consultants whether they could provide any examples of hospitals with satellite locations one hour or two hours away from the main location - like SAH.

The consultants didn't know of any.

That's when Wildman said they said referred to the relationship between Matthews Memorial and SAH as like some strange, exotic fruit.

After presentations at tonight's meeting by Gagnon, Bazinet, SAH Chair Elaine Pitcher and Johnson Township Mayor Edith Orr, there was time for questions from the floor.

Many of the people who responded talked about how the hospital had directly and positively affected their lives.

"I am a heart patient and so is my husband," said Linda Lauzon from Jocelyn Township. "Matthews Memorial is the reason we can still live in our home. If they close it and I have a heart attack, well I told my husband to just put an Asprin in my mouth and say goodbye because I'll never make it all the way to the Sault."

A teacher from a school in Richards Landing said the hospital has saved the lives of several of her students who have severe allergies.

She asked whether SAH would be training paramedics and other emergency responders to save lives of patients who will now have another 45 to 60 minutes added to their travel time for emergency health care.

Gagnon said SAH doesn't run the area ambulance service and it would be up to those service providers to train their people if they want to.

Another concern raised at the meeting concerned the Ontario health care premiums we are charged.

One man suggested that the people relying on Matthews Memorial Hospital should have their premiums reduced since their access to health care would be very negatively affected if the hospital were to close.

A few suggested that Matthews Memorial seek standing as an independent hospital and go it alone, keeping the $13 million that area residents contribute to SAH through the premium.

Others asked for the full consultant's report to be released.

Pitcher refused to do that, saying that enough of the pertinent information had been released.

Asked about cost, she said the cost of the report wouldn't be released at the meeting because it wasn't the proper time.

Pitcher said that would be more appropriate when a financial recovery plan required by the LHIN is in place and being acted on.

"$800 thousand is well spent to prevent 26 deaths and 324 serious complications. How can you justify closure?" said Jody's dad, Bud Wildman, a former Algoma MPP and provincial cabinet minister.

During his presentation, Gagnon said that the consultant is recommending closure of Matthews Memorial for several reasons, mainly a perceived lack of need as demonstrated by the number of people using it and what they used it for.

Sault Mayor John Rowswell also took the microphone for a few minutes, assuring everyone that this issue is being worked on at a very high level.

"Now we're talking about a level above SAH, above the LHIN, even above the province," Rowswell said. "SAH and the LHIN are in an impossible situation and we're trying to make them [the province] realize Northern Ontario is different from Southern Ontario and you don't want to squash out rural Ontario which is the heart of Northern Ontario."

Some at the meeting expressed concern that young people, doctors and other professionals will not want to live in the area if there's no hospital.

Connie Witty, chair of Matthews Memorial Hospital Association, said her group has not been consulted and that the numbers used to justify the consultant's closure recommendation don't agree with the association's figures.

Even if they were accurate for Matthews, Witty said, they would be equally accurate for almost any hospital in the province.

Witty called SAH's rationale for closing Matthews Memorial a red herring.

Algoma-Manitoulin MPP Mike Brown said he appreciated the LHIN and SAH's willingness to hold public meetings as part of their commitment to carefully consider options before any hospital closures.

"We're all in this together and Matthews Memorial Hospital cannot be closed," he said. "They will realize you can't balance your budget on the backs of your country cousins."