Toronto Councillor Jim Karygiannis discuss shaping the future of health care in Scarborough

SCARBOROUGH (January 23, 2019) – This morning, Scarborough Health Network’s (SHN) Elizabeth Buller, President and CEO, and Dr. Dick Zoutman, Chief of Staff, met with Jim Karygiannis, City Councillor, Ward 22 – Scarborough-Agincourt, for a productive conversation about how SHN is transforming health care in Scarborough.

They were joined by leaders of SHN’s Women’s and Children’s program, including Linda Calhoun, Chief Nursing Executive; Dr. Georgina Wilcock, Chief and Medical Director of Obstetrics and Gynaecology for the General hospital; Dr. Colette Rutherford, Chief and Medical Director of Obstetrics and Gynaecology for the Birchmount and Centenary hospitals; and Dr. Peter Azzopardi, Chief and Medical Director of Paediatrics for the Birchmount and General hospitals.

As a recently integrated health network, SHN is reviewing all of its clinical and non-clinical programs to ensure it is providing the best high quality care for the residents of Scarborough. The first program being reviewed as part of this process is the Women’s and Children’s program.

“Our goal is straightforward: to provide the high quality care for our community by creating centres of excellence that deliver world-class care. We appreciated having an open, positive conversation with Councillor Karygiannis that focused on reimagining how we deliver care, and we commit ourselves to providing the services our community needs the most, now and into the future,” said Ms. Buller.

“We want to assure Councillor Karygiannis and the people of Scarborough that the Women’s and Children’s program will ensure safe and high-quality care no matter where patients receive that care.”

Dr. Zoutman added: “We will not be closing any of our emergency departments, nor any of our acute care hospitals, as a result of the Women’s and Children’s program services review. Birchmount will remain a community hospital and we will be reinvesting into other programs and services as a result of our comprehensive clinical services review.

“For example, the area around Birchmount has one of the highest populations of elderly in the GTA and we’ll be looking at how we can best serve our senior patients across Scarborough. Examples of other clinical services include mental health, orthopaedics, oncology, and many more.”