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I think that the Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital (OSMH) board is doing a fine job in the ‘operating theatre’ by eliminating an unnecessary appendage to its governance structure.
Dispensing with OSMH’s anachronistic paid corporate membership model is long overdue. Only one other hospital in Ontario has a similar arrangement.
Why the ‘old guard’ (Ted Emond, Don McIsaac and Doug Lewis) is advocating retention of a governance format that is well over 100 years old is beyond me, or perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised at all.
The OSMH board wishes to preserve the one benefit associated with the paid membership model, that being community engagement. The board wishes to formalize a role for the proposed successor group, Friends of Soldiers’, by offering three seats on its key community engagement committee. Inclusiveness at its best.
Do I detect a veiled threat from a former fundraiser and letter writer who says that disenfranchising corporate members “doesn’t make sense?” Is he suggesting that these members would no longer be willing to make financial contributions to OSMH if the hospital successfully moves forward to the ‘best practice’ governance (skills-based membership) model?
Bureaucrats don’t run hospitals. Bureaucrats run governments.
Innovative administrators run hospitals. Thank goodness we have them here in Orillia.
R. Peter Weedon
Orillia
