CAMBRIDGE — Budget cuts are undermining needed services at Cambridge Memorial Hospital, says an organizer of a town-hall meeting Sunday.

“It’s about the cuts to the Cambridge hospital and the deficit,” said Natalie Mehra of the Ontario Health Coalition.

The goal of the meeting is to educate the public, prompt discussion and develop local solutions to local issues, she said.

Hosted by the Cambridge Health Coalition, the meeting starts at 1 p.m. at the Cambridge Newfoundland Club, 1500 Dunbar Rd.

Speakers are expected to include Jim Shuttleworth of the Cambridge stroke recovery group, Ontario Nursing Association President Brenda Pugh, Orville Thacker of the Waterloo Regional Health Coalition and Tania Heinemann of the Cambridge breastfeeding support group.

Cambridge Memorial ended its lactation consultant services last June. That leaves new moms to get advice from nurses who aren’t experts in helping babies breastfeed, Heinemann said.

There’s only two lactation consultants now in the city. One works at family health team and the other has to take clients from across Waterloo Region, she said.

Mehra said there will also be talk about how the province using benchmarks and spreadsheets to drive down hospital funding in the name of efficiency, despite the local realities.

“That has nothing to do with actually measuring a populations’ need for services. Patients get caught in the middle of their technology.”

Cambridge Memorial is under Health Ministry supervision because it couldn’t balance its budget, as provincial law requires. The supervisor is moving ahead with a plan to cut $11 million over two years to balance the budget. That eliminates 85 jobs, 35 beds closed, with patients moved to other facilities across Waterloo-Wellington.

Hospital officials say the efficiency exercise is needed regardless of the level of provincial funding, because money is being wasted and patient care will be improved.

Click here for information from the hospital about its "improvement plan."  And here, too.

“For the last couple of years, hospital funding has not kept pace with inflation in hospitals,” Mehra said. “The majority of hospitals have been pushed into deficits.”

The health coalition is an advocacy group opposed to opposed user fees and cuts to services. It receives no corporate money, but does get funding from private donors, health professionals, unions and social agencies, Mehra said.

For information about Sunday’s meeting, email cambridgehealthcoalition@gmail.com.