8 The South Marysburgh Mirror essen(cid:415)ally move procedures away from less cost effec- (cid:415)ve who couldn't deliver the right costs with the right quality. In some small ways it has worked and common surgeries such as cataracts, hips and knees are cos(cid:415)ng far less than they did thanks to new well researched standardized approaches. But there were flaws in the alloca(cid:415)on methods and QHC was hit especially hard because of its mul(cid:415)-site op- era(cid:415)on. It's important to note that a single administra- (cid:415)on of our four hospitals HAS saved the province a lot of money and delivered other benefits as well. Neverthe- less it's s(cid:415)ll four separate sites with mul(cid:415)ple overheads with everything from snow clearing to steriliza(cid:415)on equipment. This nonsense needs to stop now. QHC needs to be adequately funded. We need to get the leaders of our health system focused on what they can do to improve this badly overloaded system, not figh(cid:415)ng rear guard funding life and death ba(cid:425)les over and over again. Todd Smith … as our local MPP, you are in(cid:415)mately aware of this situa(cid:415)on. It's (cid:415)me to get this fixed once and for all. Doug McGregor is a re(cid:415)red engineer resident in Prince Edward County and is a former board member and Chair of Quinte Health Care board of directors. Follow The South Marysburgh Mirror on Facebook Q H C By Doug McGregor Our region is stuck in a (cid:415)me vortex when it comes to health care, and the most direct evidence of this is the chronic under funding of Quinte Health Care (QHC). A(cid:332)er years of aggressive expense reduc(cid:415)on, and external studies to confirm they had done what they could, QHC declared at their last board mee(cid:415)ng they could cut no more and they are facing a mul(cid:415)-million dollar shor(cid:414)all in funding. This is a difficult and bold decision for any hospital board to make. Under Ontario law deficits are not permi(cid:425)ed and can cause the board to be dismissed and some of the senior management team to be fired. This actually happened not that many years ago at the Brockville General Hospital. Further complica(cid:415)ng things is QHC's working capital (cash in the bank) which has been drawn down bit by bit for years. A deficit of this size can only be sustained for 1 -2 years at best before the cash dries up. So how did it come to this? Well the sad part is it isn't news. This has been going on for years and the LHIN, the Ministry and both Liberal and now Conserva(cid:415)ve governments are both very well aware. Some years ago the Health Ministry introduced a new funding alloca(cid:415)on system. It's pre(cid:425)y complex and was designed to drive cost out of the system and