Local hospital under scrutiny after review highlights concerns over leadership, quality of care

Stevenson Memorial Hospital in Alliston, Ont. (Mike Arsalides/CTV News)

Governance, leadership, quality of care, operations, and financial performance are all concerns highlighted in a final report from an investigation into Stevenson Memorial Hospital in Alliston.

Earlier this year, former Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre CEO Janice Skot was tasked with reviewing the hospital's operations, culminating in a 77-page document that took four months to complete.

The investigation summarized the hospital as struggling to "provide safe, accessible care while making the best use of limited taxpayer dollars."

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It added that the hospital "has suffered a series of disruptive changes, a decline in organizational performance, a culture of mistrust and fear, revolving-door leadership, chaotic destabilization, and significant financial challenges."

Skot's review also listed 16 recommendations for the hospital to complete in order to reshape its organizational challenges.

Among them was the hiring of Eric Hanna, a former hospital executive with 35 years of experience at the helm of two hospitals in eastern Ontario.

"I'm here to make sure that that quality of care continues to improve," Hanna told CTV News one week after his appointment. "Those 16 recommendations, we've prioritized them based upon the urgency that is behind the matter and behind the level of importance."

He said an external review of diagnostic imaging and obstetrics is among those at the top of the list.

So, too, is the formation of partnerships outside the hospital.

The report does not suggest who those partnerships should be with or what they should do with them, other than it should be with a "larger, more complex hospital."

Hanna said he's working with the current governance and staff to develop a solution that's local and meets the needs and requests of the community.

"This is about us and our team that are here, and the perspectives of patients and the perspectives of the community and that's going to take some time to do," he said. "But I'm very, very confident that we're going to be able to address them."

Hanna has only been on the job for a week and has yet to be able to come up with solutions to the investigator's report.

However, he will be the hospital's supervisor for up to a year.