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Headwaters responds to merger rumours

September 18, 2015   ·   0 Comments

Recently, a fake Facebook account began posting on local Q&A groups under the name Con Citi about an alleged secret merger between Headwaters Healthcare Centre, the CCAC and William Osler Health System. According to the account, and their subsequent Facebook Page, the board has been meeting in secret for nearly a year working on the deal.

Despite their claims, the ‘concerned citizens’ group had not been able to produce any evidence of the merger, or any documented proof as of the time of publication of this article.

“It’s not accurate, what’s on the FB page,” said Liz Ruegg, President and CEO of Headwaters Health Care Centre. “Everybody loves Headwaters, and that page has been talking incorrectly about the future of our hospital. You don’t have to worry; there’s nothing to save. Headwaters is here to stay.”

She added that so far, staff at the hospital as well as the Headwaters Health Care Foundation Board have no idea what spurred the ‘campaign’ or who is behind it.

“With the timing, we are celebrating a one-year anniversary with the move we made with our partners to integrate our back office,” she said. “We’ve developed a joint IT department and worked together to develop an annual business plan. The integration with our partners have provided us with more access to specialist that we never had access to before.”

The hospital is currently preparing to break ground on an 8200 square foot addition, as well as focusing on the redevelopment of some space and departments to improve service.

“Working with our partners, like William Osler, has allowed us to do things like add more spots for patients receiving chemotherapy, as well as a soon-to-be added third shift for dialysis,” said Ms. Ruegg. “It’s all about improving care for people in our community.”

Although there have been discussions with the partners, the discussions have been surrounding more ways they can improve and provide further care to the local community.

Headwaters Health Care Centre has been working in an official partnership with both William Osler and the CCAC since last year, when the announcement was made of the upcoming integrations that were designed to help make the hospital more efficient and centred more around patient-first care.

“As leaders, as the hospital, we need to be open and look at new and bold things to ensure our community has the health services available for now and the future,” she said. “The boards are continuing to work together, but any decisions we would ever make [of that calibre] we would never make without engaging our community, physicians, staff and other local health service providers.”

Rob Hamilton, Board Chair added that they are always looking for community input, and are diligent in looking into ideas that may be presented.

“We as a Board have a responsibility to investigate ongoing opportunities to improve service,” said Mr. Hamilton. “We need to continue to move forward in terms of looking for better ways to provide more equal access to services. We also have a responsibility to vet all options that are presented so that we can thoroughly investigate them before we bring it to the community for involvement. We would absolutely have a period of community involvement before making any decisions.”

Both Mr. Hamilton and Ms. Ruegg were very clear that Headwaters Hospital is not going anywhere.

“We are here to stay, we are going to continue to grow, and continue to provide high quality service,” said Ms. Ruegg.

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