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Keep your eye on the prize
Friday July 25 2008 It’s time to move past the finger pointing and work together toward a solution for the doctor shortage in northern Dufferin.
A Dufferin-wide underserviced doctor designation isn’t going to happen anytime soon — opposition is very strong in the county’s north. Much of that opposition appears to stem from a feeling the north has been abandoned by the physician search committee in favour of attracting doctors to Orangeville.
Active representation from northern Dufferin on the committee may help.
Shelburne mayor Ed Crewson tells The Banner he resigned from the committee in 2000 in protest of a committee decision. Town councillor Walter Benotto subsequently joined and resigned in 2002 in an unrelated protest.
Since then, it was thought there wasn’t any northern Dufferin representation on the  committee.
However, Crewson says he was recently going through the minutes of town council meetings and discovered he was reappointed in 2003. If he can put his very strong emotions aside for a while, we urge him not to relinquish this post, as he indicated is his plan. Rather, he should start attending committee meetings and steer its efforts from the inside.
Perhaps, as suggested by Mono councillor Ken McGhee this week, county council should consider mandating the search committee to focus its attention on Shelburne.
Not that there isn’t a need in Orangeville too, but the situation in Shelburne is worse. There are thousands of northern Dufferin residents without a family doctor, including half of those living at the county-owned Dufferin Oaks long-term care centre.
As a result, people are making the trip to the emergency room at Headwaters Health Care Centre in Orangeville for, in some cases, routine treatment. That creates longer wait times, which negatively impacts us as a whole.
It’s time to start looking for answers.

North Peel Media Group Newspapers: The Brampton Guardian Caledon Enterprise Independent & Free Press Orangeville Banner