Grimsby hospital chief resigns

Dr. Gary Benson says he was “blindsided” by services move

West Lincoln Memorial Hospital’s chief of staff, Dr. Gary Benson, has resigned in response to plans to move obstetrics and surgery out of the hospital.

And if those services are gone as of Jan. 1, hospital surgeon Dr. Lenore Zettel fears additional services will follow suit — possibly leading to the complete closure of the Grimsby facility.

“It doesn’t look good,” she said. In his letter of resignation, Benson wrote that he was “totally blindsided” by the decision, after learning about it during an Oct. 17 teleconference with Hamilton Health Sciences senior management.

“I was shocked to hear this news and neither I or other members of the leadership team at WLMH had been consulted or informed in advance of this decision. I was totally blindsided. I felt that the decision was wrong and it would be a fatal blow to WLMH and to our west Niagara commu-

nities,” Benson wrote, adding he chose to resign later that evening, unable to support the “drastic move.”

“This most recent decision has left me shocked and bewildered,” he added. “I honestly believe that they (HHS) fail to understand the consequences their decision will have on our communities. I have always felt that WLMH is a model community hospital providing primary centred care to our communities. The proposed changes will destroy this model of care.”

Benson also said the decision was announced after the proposal had been presented to Hamilton Health Science’s board of directors for information and would not be voted on until the board’s next meeting, scheduled for Dec. 6.

“I find it very difficult to understand how this decision can be implemented without the approval of the HHSC board,” he wrote.

Zettel said if she felt the operating room posed a risk to her patients, “I certainly would not operate here.”

“Surgery, whether it’s general surgery or obstetrics, is the backbone of a hospital,” Zettel said. “If you take that away, the anesthetists no longer have any work, so they leave. And once that happens, it’s a general progression. Is there going to be anything for internal medicine physicians? If they leave, it’s just the emergency department itself. Is that going to turn into an urgent care, or eventually will there be nothing here?” she said. “The fear is that eventually over time, if surgery does go the hospital may very well close.”

Zettel said hospital staff hope “the public can do something about that, to raise interest in preserving our hospital and maybe even swaying the board to say, ‘Let’s keep it open and see if we can get some funding instead if closing things abruptly.”

She also used to provide endoscopy services at the hospital, until HHS moved the services out of the hospital earlier this year, after determining the facility would require upgrades to meet accreditation standards.

Zettel called Benson’s decision to leave “a great loss.”

“He’s been through a lot. He’s been there advocating for our hospital ever since he became chief of staff, and even before when he was a family physician and GP/anesthetist. It was a devastating thing for him. To find out the way he did without any consultation or anything else, that’s unfair.”