OrilliaMatters welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter was written by Michael McMurter, who was a member of the Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital board of directors for six years.
Considering the significant contributions that Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital (OSMH) corporate members have made for over 100 years, it is a sad commentary on the leadership that would belittle, malign, and demonize them with no obvious benefits to delivering quality health care in our community.
However, on March 6, the board leadership will proceed with a special general meeting with the sole purpose of eliminating corporate memberships.
By eliminating corporate memberships and assigning all future memberships to only board directors, they will have their self-selected, self-elected, self-serving board they so desperately want with no prescribed accountability to the community. This is wrong.
To ensure their success, they have created a theatre of fear, a series of ‘Chicken Little scenarios’ specifically designed to justify their intentions, and they have spent a considerable amount of time and effort disseminating these doomsday scenarios.
It’s absolutely absurd to think that a group of citizens in Orillia would take out memberships under the pretense of taking total control of OSMH. Even in the worst of times, this has not happened in over 100 years.
Without the corporate membership bylaw remaining intact, the greater risk is a rogue leadership doing whatever it pleases. We have to look no further than 2007, when the membership and community saved OSMH from an out-of-control CEO and board.
Fact: This proposed change is optional and is not a mandatory requirement set out by the Not-for-Profit Corporations Act.
Fact: The board leadership has spent thousands of health-care dollars on a legal firm and media advertisements to help them sell their arguments.
Fact: Leadership by subterfuge. This is not their first rodeo. In 2021, right in the middle of the COVID pandemic, the leadership covertly tried to remove community ex-officios and memberships. When the press got wind of their shenanigans, they retreated.
Fact: For over two decades, the OSMH board has been a skills-based board. Full stop. Candidates are not selected or elected to the board unless they bring to the table value-added skills that are needed. To suggest the need to remove corporate memberships in order to “move towards a skills-based board” is a falsehood.
Fact: To be an OSMH board or foundation director, it has always been mandatory that you purchase a corporate membership.
Over time many ‘friends of OSMH’ including nurses, doctors, dedicated volunteers, Legion members, successful entrepreneurs, community leaders and local philanthropists have purchased memberships. These members, including former directors, continue to bring an unprecedented set of broad-based advanced skills and experience to the table that are complementary to the ongoing success of OSMH. Their purchase of corporate memberships is their way of demonstrating a sincere commitment to the sustainability and success of our community hospital, particularly those that have purchased lifetime memberships. They are already friends of Soldiers’.
Fact: Many hospitals have chosen the governance model suggested by OSMH leadership as a best practice. However, it is interesting to note that, over time, the Ministry of Health has had to send in investigators or supervisors to those same hospitals to right the ship when the leadership becomes dysfunctional.
It may be a recommended best practice for some but clearly not a best practice for our community.
Evidently, the leadership is getting pushback from the community, so now they are offering some last-minute tokenism by suggesting that corporate memberships be replaced with a group titled Friends of Soldiers’. Seriously?
So, the question is why and what’s really going on?
What is the real purpose of eliminating corporate members?
Will it improve the quality of health care in our community? No.
Will this increase the number of doctors in our community? No.
Will this get us closer to a new, modernized acute care hospital? No.
Operationally, will this complete the implementation of much-needed electronic medical records or improve community mental health programs? No.
So, why is the board leadership being so divisive at a time when our community needs all hands on deck to address our current community health-care crisis?
Perhaps OSMH would be better served if the leadership focused on improving the fundamentals of quality health care rather than denigrating corporate members and their generous contributions they have made for over 100 years.
I leave it with you.
Michael McMurter
Orillia
