Lifelines: People along Lake Huron’s north shore concerned about services, long drives for health care – CBC
Worries include lack of primary health care and distance to services
Aug 01, 2024
Cathy Marshall knows every bend and dip of Highway 17 between Sault Ste. Marie and Blind River in northern Ontario because of a life-threatening health scare last year and her daughterly duties of watching over aging parents in care in different communities.
Born and raised in Iron Bridge, Marshall is rooted there.
She’s also among people who credit small-town health care with helping them survive life-altering crises and worry its vitality is precarious after emergency room closures in 2023.
The North Shore Health Network consists of an 18-bed hospital in Blind River and emergency rooms in Thessalon and Richard’s Landing. Marshall commends doctors there for diagnosing her with an invasive strep infection and septic shock in January 2023.
They stabilized her before sending her to Sudbury’s Health Sciences North, 220 kilometres away on the Trans-Canada Highway.
“I can honestly say I’m here today because of this hospital [in Thessalon],” she said, tearing up.
