While politicians ponder big-picture solutions on the campaign trail this fall, the fight to maintain rural health-care levels goes on daily in our Muskoka hospitals.

Are the leaders seeing that fight?

We ask the question because it would seem the campaign is more concerned with ideological banter over school funding. Wasting time, money and energy on a massive shift in funding our schools is ridiculous given the health-care challenges in Ontario. It’s an example of politics trumping priorities.

Hospital budgets, regionalization of services and physician shortages should rank number one on the agenda. But nobody really wants to talk about health care, because there is not much new to say.

PC leader John Tory’s health-care plan calls for billions more to be dumped into the system, along with giving loan payment breaks to medical students. Premier Dalton McGuinty will stick with his $2.8-billion health tax. NDP leader Howard Hampton would phase out McGuinty’s tax and provide low- and middle-income families a tax rebate. Green Party leader Frank de Jong has long contended that education and health-care budgets could be better managed by cutting income taxes.

But nobody is talking about regionalization and rationalization of services and their effect on rural hospitals.

As is usually the case, it will be left to the front-line administrators and health-care providers to keep the system functioning as the government takes a top-down, urban-created approach to reform.

Without initiatives like Northern Ontario Medical School students being welcomed here for training, we would be left to think that improving rural health care is of little significance to would-be decision makers.

BH