The co-chair of the Grey Bruce Health Coalition is advising people against filling out a South Bruce Grey Health Centre (SBGHC) survey on local healthcare services.
The Health Centre is conducting community engagement after greatly reducing services at two of its four hospitals over the last year and a half. In a release, SBGHC said its committed to keeping all four of its sites open and is trying to evaluate how best to use its limited resources to care for all communities.
As part of that work, they've issued a survey, that, among other things, asks residents to rank their healthcare priorities.
Brenda Scott, who is also co-chair of the Chesley Hospital Action Committee, has highlighted issues with a survey, whish asks respondents to select three of a possible six healthcare services they'd like to see in their area.
Scott says people should be entitled to all of those services.
"I know a lot of people that are putting a comment at the bottom 'I refuse to answer these questions,' you know because they're biased, they're skewed and leading you in a particular direction," she said. "That's my suggestion, don't do it. Make them come out with a more credible survey."
Survey results will be accepted until September 10. It can be found online or in paper copies at the West Grey, Arran-Elderslie, Brockton and Huron-Kinloss municipal offices.
Along with the survey, SBGHC held two in-person community engagement sessions in Chesley and Durham in late August, with hundreds of people in attendance, as well as board members and CEO Nancy Shaw.
Scott attended both sessions and said many questions went unanswered and there weren't any updates on what was being done to increase staffing at the hospitals.
"The questions around nursing shortages and retention, people didn't seem to be generally satisfied with what they were hearing and they wanted to hear more," she said. "Although I think they did appreciate at least that people finally showed up and they could see their faces."
The SBGHC board has previously been criticized for making the decision to reduce hours and remove inpatient beds from Durham without involving the community.
The Health Centre says questions that weren't answered at the engagement sessions will be addressed in a final report summarizing its findings.
While the outreach is a step forward, Scott says residents in Durham and Chesley are still worried that they'll lose their hospitals for good.
"People are really having a lot of anxiety about it," she said. "They believe it's just a matter of time until its gone and they don't believe that there's a sincere effort to keep it open, even on a part-time basis."