To whom it may concern,

Today, I received a request for a donation to the HHS Foundation. I always consider it important to donate to worthy causes. However, I cannot, in good conscience, support HHSF because of the planned restructuring.

Converting MUMC to a children’s/ women’s hospital is ill conceived at best. As a resident of Waterdown, my community hospital is McMaster. Once the changes have occurred, and if my family or I need emergency care, we will be at the mercy of either Joseph Brant Hospital in Burlington or a needlessly long ambulance ride to the Hamilton General.

Specialized sites spread across the city will not work because the majority of our consumers of health care are seniors. It’s all well and good to say that if our elderly patient falls and breaks a hip, she’ll get the best orthopaedic care at the Henderson site.

The problem, however, is that the longer we live, the more medical issues we accumulate (called co-morbidities).

Now, consider that our fallen senior suffers a heart attack or stroke (as often happens either preceding the fall, immediately after or during the recovery phase). How does this patient get the “Best Access to Care” when the cardiac and stroke units are located at the General site? This is one example of a myriad of scenarios that I foresee.

I do not believe that sick children are undeserving of the best care, but I also do not believe that the adults who have built our community all their lives are less important. The residents of West Hamilton, Ancaster, Dundas and Flamborough deserve more than a shortsighted scheme being perpetrated for political reasons.

An urgent care centre to be located “somewhere in West Hamilton” may alleviate the non-emergent cases that do clog our ER’s but they won’t help in the case of a true emergency, and the loss of adult services at MUMC will mean that local citizens who are deserving of local care will not be entitled to it.

Bill Barnett, Waterdown