FORT FRANCES — Board members of a health care foundation in the Rainy River district are looking for answers, and they’re asking the provincial government to help.
Riverside Health Care (RHC), which operates the general hospital in Fort Frances and several other facilities in the district, severed its relationship with the Riverside Foundation for Health Care in early March and announced the hiring of its own fundraising director.
The foundation was told in a letter dated March 3 that it’s no longer authorized to raise money on RHC’s behalf.
In a May 7 open letter to Health Minister Sylvia Jones, foundation chair Tyler Cousineau and two other board members ask for “clarity on this matter at the earliest opportunity.”
“A lack of communication erodes public trust – something no health system can afford,” they say in the letter.
“We have received no response at this time,” Paul Brunetta, one of the letter’s signatories, said Monday.
The letter to Jones was needed because “people are asking us for answers and we’re unable to provide them,” said Brunetta, past chair of the foundation.
“You know, the foundation is something that’s important to our community,” he said. “It’s been around for 28 years now.
“We’re not sure why this decision was made, who made the decision, who was consulted.”
One historical role of the foundation “is making sure funds are spent where they should be when they come from the community,” he said.
“So, we’d like to know how that financial transparency and accountability is going to continue.”
Every other community with a hospital in Northwestern Ontario has a foundation to raise money for that hospital, he noted.
“So what makes Fort Frances so different that it’s no longer required here, and why was that decision made?
“We just want to be able to answer questions within the community,” Brunetta said.
The foundation’s letter to Jones says RHC told the foundation the relationship was being terminated because the foundation refused to sign a “relationship agreement” with RHC.
But that agreement was drafted without input from the foundation, “required the foundation to relinquish control over key functions” and “ended all financial and administrative support” from RHC, according to the letter.
“Logically, one would ask: Why would Riverside provide the foundation with this ultimatum? And why would they withdraw their support for an organization that has been so effective fundraising on their behalf?” the letter states.
Reached for comment, RHC said it had no comment regarding the foundation’s letter to Jones.
