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What's a LHIN and what does it do?

For Health Sciences North to submit its capital funding proposal for its standalone NEO Kids centre – a 44,000 square-foot building for outpatient pediatric care – to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care it needs the approval of the North East L
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North East LHIN CEO Louise Paquette said her organization's new publication on the history of community hospitals in northeastern Ontario should help kickstart a conversation on health care in the North. Photo by Jonathan Migneault.
For Health Sciences North to submit its capital funding proposal for its standalone NEO Kids centre – a 44,000 square-foot building for outpatient pediatric care – to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care it needs the approval of the North East Local Health Integration Network (LHIN).

But what exactly does the LHIN do? What is its mandate, and how does its decision-making process work?

In 2007, the provincial Liberals established 14 LHINs across Ontario to bring major health care decision-making to the regional level.

They were tasked with with planning, integrating, and distributing provincial funding for all public healthcare services at a regional level.

The North East LHIN covers an area that spans 400,000 square kilometres and includes more than 565,000 people in northeastern Ontario.

The LHIN has offices in North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins and Sudbury.

It has a $1.4 billion budget it uses to fund close to 150 health-care partners in the region, including hospitals, community support services, mental health and addictions, community health centres, long-term care homes and the North East Community Care Access Centre.

North East LHIN CEO Louise Paquette joined the regional health board in 2010, and leads its strategic direction, along with a board of directors made up of seven members from across the northeast.

The board includes a retired Canadian Forces captain, an oncologist, a certified general accountant, and a chaplain.

The board of directors and staff use a decision-making framework to guide the evaluation of proposals for new programs and initiatives, changes to existing programs and integration proposals.

Anyone can apply to be a board member through the Public Appointments Secretariat.

Board members are to be selected using a merit-based process, with all candidates assessed for the fit between skills and abilities of the prospective appointee and the needs of each Local Health Integration Network.

When the LHIN system was created, the idea was to create a system where health-care dollars were allocated in a way that better reflected local needs, because spending decisions were being made by people with more of a local connection.

And while the idea seems sound, the LHINs have their detractors, namely both opposition parties, which have questioned the system's accountability.

Former Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath have both promised to disband the LHINs, if elected.

In 2011, Hudak called the LHINs “an expensive shield and a bloated bureaucracy that doesn't deliver any kind of patient care.”

At Health Sciences North's annual general meeting June 18, guest speaker Dr. Nicolas Steinmetz, an associate professor of pediatrics at McGill University, and chair emeritus of the Montreal Children's Hospital Foundation, criticized the North East LHIN for not lending its support to the hospital's NEO Kids proposal.

But North East LHIN board chair Danielle Bélanger-Corbin said that while she and her colleagues support the hospital's vision for NEO Kids, the LHIN has to weigh every decision against the needs of the entire region and everyone who lives in the northeast, not just one sector or segment of the population.

“We're not just there to rubber-stamp something, because we have a responsibility as a LHIN to ensure that what's being presented is strong enough,” she said. “We have the interests of northerners at heart, and we want this to succeed.”

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Jonathan Migneault

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