Re: HHS Access to the Best Care plan

Critics of the Access to the Best Care plan need to look at the evidence and take the rhetoric and emotion out of the equation. I appreciate that change is always difficult, but the mission of HHS is much broader than serving the communities located near any one of our hospitals.

People throughout the region routinely drive an hour or two to access our expert teams and receive care that is not available in their local hospital. The care they need is complex and the best way to provide this type of care is to put specialized teams together. As a surgeon, I've witnessed the vast improvements in outcomes for patients having complex surgical procedures that resulted from the consolidation of programs as well as opportunities for the development of greater expertise within teams.

Providing high quality health care and especially achieving the level of outcomes that we know is possible is a complicated process. There are many choices that must be made, and when patients are asked to choose between improved quality or convenience, my experience is that they inevitably choose the former.

The teams of people who developed this plan are health care experts who care deeply about the needs of this community as well as the broader region that we serve, and wish to provide the best system of care possible. We live here too, and want nothing less for our community, our families and ourselves.

Dr. Michael Marcaccio, Cancer Surgeon

Hamilton Health Sciences

McMaster University Medical Centre