Horizon Health is defending the operations of the Charlotte County Hospital.
In a letter to the Concerned Citizens of Charlotte County, dated January 11th, CEO John McGarry, who is slated to retire this month, says the long term plans in St. Stephen include the “continuation of current services, predicated upon the willingness of qualified and available manpower.”
It goes on to say they are encouraging surgeons and other physicians to maintain the current services, however, they are not recruiting a replacement general surgeon.
McGarry notes they are working to improve primary care services at Charlotte County Hospital, such as the enhancement of the nurse practitioner within the hospital, and says through VP Medical, Dr. Hendriks, they are open to working with the community to leverage any enticements or arrangements that might be made available by the town in order to recruit more primary care physicians to St. Stephen, as they do for all communities in need of physicians.
Meantime, Trudy Higgins with the Concerned Citizens group says the letter from McGarry is full of holes.
“It starts out to say that they’re going to maintain the hospital with its current services ‘predicated upon the willingness of qualified and available manpower’, but Horizon controls the manpower. It’s like they’re putting their foot on the oxygen tube. They’re cutting it off.”
Higgins points to the claim of encouraging surgeons and other physicians to continue, “Everyone is well aware that Dr. Goulding is ill, and is not going to be working, so you can not encourage somebody who’s not able to work.”
She also points to the fact Horizon is not recruiting a replacement for Dr. Goulding, who is the last remaining surgeon at the Charlotte County Hospital. Therefore, what few services were available in the operating room under local anesthetic are no longer there.
