As part of the next steps to implement Your Health, a plan for connected and convenient care, the Ontario government is proposing regulatory changes that, would name Accreditation Canada as the inspection body responsible for ensuring the highest quality standards and strong oversight of the 900+ current and all future community surgical and diagnostic centres, effective April 1, 2024.

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Today, the Ontario government introduced the Your Health Act, 2023, which outlines the province’s next steps in its plan to reduce wait times for surgeries, procedures and diagnostic imaging, while enabling its new “As of Right” rules to automatically recognize the credentials of health care workers registered in other provinces and territories.

The post Ontario Reducing Wait Times For Publicly Funded Surgeries And Diagnostics appeared first on Muskoka411.

Urgent and emergent surgical needs will continue to be provided such as cancer surgery and emergency trauma surgery like hip fracture repair.

All non-urgent surgical and endoscopic procedures will be cancelled and rescheduled at a later date, and other non-urgent outpatient appointments may be postponed.

“We understand the worry and frustration being felt by people who have been waiting for their procedures and surgeries,” said Carmine Stumpo, OSMH President and CEO. “We will make every effort to restore care at the earliest possible time.”

Patients will be notified directly if this pause impacts their surgery, procedure or clinic appointment. Only those patients whose appointments are cancelled will be notified. If you do not receive a call, your surgery/appointment will proceed and closer to the date, you will receive instructions on how to prepare and what to do upon arrival.

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Scarlett Seymour was born with an omphalocele, meaning her liver, stomach, gallbladder and bowels developed on the outside of her body. The surgery she had on Oct. 28 was a partial repair to put half of her stomach into her abdomen. Putting her organs into her body too quickly could affect her heart and lung function, and since Scarlett has been on oxygen support since birth, her doctors are taking a slow and cautious approach. After seeing their daughter go through so many pokes and procedures, parents Amanda and Jay Seymour were anxious to send her into yet another surgery.

“It’s never easy because the last time she had major surgery, we were told she wasn’t going to come home and that there was no chance of survival,” Amanda said. “So my husband and I were very nervous leading up to and going into surgery and all you can do is pace the floor while you’re there.”

Scarlett was in a good mood heading into the procedure, Amanda said, and they arranged to have child life specialists help Scarlett understand and cope with the surgery before it happened. Everything was looking good heading into the operation, and not too long after, Amanda and Jay were greeted with great news.

“The surgeon came and found my husband and I in the waiting room and was like, ‘Everything went better than expected, better than planned,’” Amanda said. “Two hours after the operation, she was extubated so they took her breathing tube out right away, and she did so well that we got discharged after eight days.”

Scarlett has never done so well in surgery before, so they were excited to see her doing so great so quickly after the procedure. It’s not easy to see your child in the hospital and have no control over what doctors do to them, Amanda said, but the doctors and nurses did everything they could to keep her safe and help her recover quickly.

A friend of the family whose daughter was undergoing surgery for the same condition as Scarlett was also in town, so they were lucky to have the support of their friend along with family support to help them through the stress, Amanda said. Four or five days after the operation, Scarlett took her first post-surgery steps.

“It’s a half repair, but still, [while] walking, her equilibrium and balance was way off,” Amanda said. “She had to kind of learn how to take those first few steps again.”

After Scarlett was discharged on Nov. 5, the family headed back to the Ronald McDonald House. They planned to stay for the weekend, but since Scarlett was doing so well, they ended up heading home the next day, weeks earlier than expected.

Scarlett will be heading back to SickKids in six months to get the rest of her stomach put inside her body. She also has appointments lined up to address her scoliosis, so Amanda is hopeful that her other upcoming procedures will be just as successful.

“I’m still kind of in shock actually because our expected length was to be away for over a month and she’s blown us away on this one again,” Amanda said. “You never know what this little one’s going to come up with next, so I just hope her next surgery is just as quick as this one.”

For now, Scarlett is at home recovering with her mom while also getting back into a normal routine with physiotherapy and other medical appointments. She’s been even more talkative since being in the hospital, so it makes her family happy to see her learn new things everyday.

After spending Scarlett’s first Christmas in the hospital and going back and forth to the hospital during her second holiday season, Scarlett’s family is eager to have Christmas at home. Now that Scarlett is three, Amanda is hoping this Christmas will be the first one where she starts to understand the holiday and is able to participate with family.

Without the support from Port Sydney and the surrounding community, the coming months filled with appointment after appointment would be particularly difficult, Amanda said. It’s been incredible to see so many people stand behind them and offer help through food and other necessities along with the $27,000 raised through the first-ever Mary Lake Marathon.

“It’s amazing,” Amanda said. “We would have been financially strapped a little bit with appointments every couple of weeks or months, but knowing that we have such a great community behind us, that burden of it is taken off.”

To make a donation in support of Scarlett and her family, click here.

Mary Lake Marathon Raises Over $27,000 For Port Sydney Girl Facing Upcoming Surgery

The post Port Sydney Three-Year-Old Returns Home After A Successful Surgery In Toronto appeared first on Muskoka411.

Mounsteven launched the marathon in honour of Scarlett Seymour, who was born with her liver, stomach, gallbladder and bowels on the outside of her body. She’s been through many surgeries already in her three years of life, and she’s returning to the operating room to have part of her stomach put inside her body on Oct. 28. To support her and her family during that time, Mounsteven put together an online fundraiser that brought in over $20,000 and collected $7,000 in cash, cheques and other donations. In addition to the fundraising, dozens of people came out to support Scarlett at the event on Oct. 10, despite a bout of bad weather.

“To have people come out and brave the elements and still want to take part and have a smile on their face, it was a real joyous event to be a part of,” Mounsteven said.

About 60 people came out to do a 5-kilometre fun run while Mounsteven ran the full distance of 42 kilometres as a trial run for future years of the marathon. The event also included a barbecue and ceremony before Scarlett kicked off the 5K with a ceremonial sprint down the sidewalk.

The words of encouragement were “seemingly endless,” Mounsteven said, and it helped him realize how dedicated and supportive the Port Sydney community truly is. He knew the marathon would become a yearly staple in the community as he watched his idea for a running event morph into something bigger than he ever imagined.

“Honest and truly it has changed my life to be able to see the way that people like this in a community have been able to come together,” Mounsteven said. “It’s incredibly inspiring and I feel we could do more.”

In service of that goal, Mounsteven and his wife Jackie plan to start a foundation to go alongside the annual marathon. They had hoped to hold the next marathon in the spring, but to ensure there’s enough time to register the charity and plan the event, they’ve decided to host the second Mary Lake Marathon in the fall of 2022.

They’re not sure who the next beneficiary for the event will be, but Mounsteven said he hopes to continue supporting children in the area. For now, he’s happy to know the money is going to a family that’s eager to help others and he said it’s been amazing “to be a part of that wave of generosity and love.” He plans to keep the online fundraiser running for a couple more weeks and he’ll continue to collect other donations for the Seymour family as long as they keep coming in.

“It was really empowering to be able to see the reaction from the community when [Scarlett] was there, and there were people who were eager to meet her and to be able to soak up her happy disposition in light of all of the rough road that she’s had to endure,” he said. “She is a beacon for everything that is awesome about this community.”

Scarlett’s mother Amanda Seymour said she can’t express how grateful she feels toward Mounsteven. This isn’t the first time Port Sydney has rallied behind her family, but the magnitude of the generosity has still left her stunned.

“The Port Sydney community is strong, they started this all off, so our family thanks Port Sydney so, so much,” Amanda said. “It’s overwhelming. Right now I have goosebumps just even talking about it.”

It was amazing to experience everyone’s support at the marathon, she said, and it gave her the chance to share how the money would help cover Scarlett’s medical expenses. Scarlett is fed through a tube, so she’ll be starting a feeding therapy soon to help her learn to eat by mouth. The therapy costs $90 for 45 minutes, so combined with $5,000 for a new breathing machine, $2,000 for new orthotics and other costs associated with her surgery, the fundraised dollars will go a long way.

Because of Scarlett’s complex medical needs, the pandemic has been particularly isolating for her and her family. Amanda said the marathon was a good opportunity to safely interact with the community, and it was great to see Scarlett lead the way with the fun run.

“Robin and Jackie’s children said, ‘One, two, three, go!’, and then Scarlett took off and ran the first little bit of the marathon, which everyone thought was really cute,” Amanda said. “She also got on the little buggy that they had with music that Robin pulled her around on and she loved it.”

Scarlett and her family will be leaving for Toronto on Oct. 25 in preparation for her surgery. The lead-up to the operation is nerve wracking, Amanda said, and COVID restrictions at the hospital only add to that. She’s arranged specialized services to help Scarlett understand and prepare for the procedure as well as music therapy to help her and the rest of the family relax throughout the surgery process.

The support from their SickKids family is astronomical on its own, but it means a lot to the Seymours to have so much love and support from their neighbours in Port Sydney as they head toward yet another surgery. Thanks to the community’s connections, the words of encouragement and donations have come from far and wide, even some from overseas.

“It was just so nice to see people from far, from close, even friends of friends of friends reaching out,” Amanda said. “Whether it was a money donation or ‘What can I do to help out your family?’ or ‘Can I make some meals for you to take down there?’, people come out of the woodworks for things like this. Our family cannot wait to support the next Mary Lake Marathon that’ll be happening next year for another lucky family.”

To make a donation in support of Scarlett and the Seymour family, click here.

Mary Lake Marathon And Fundraiser Launches In Support Of Port Sydney Girl Facing Upcoming Surgery

The post Mary Lake Marathon Raises Over $27,000 For Port Sydney Girl Facing Upcoming Surgery appeared first on Muskoka411.

Scarlett was born with a large omphalocele, meaning her liver, stomach, gallbladder and bowels developed on the outside of her body. Fellow Port Sydney resident Robin Mounsteven always dreamt of putting together a marathon after participating in 14 different marathons across the world. When he heard about Scarlett’s upcoming surgery, he knew then and there that this was his chance to launch a local marathon while also helping his community. He started planning the marathon and created a GoFundMe to go along with it on Sept. 2, setting a $5,000 goal for the fundraiser. 

“We’ve smashed that goal,” Mounsteven said. At the time of publication, the fundraiser had raised over $8,000. “I’m really humbled, and I’m curious and excited to see what it could become. Five thousand was a great starting point, but the sky’s the limit.”

Mounsteven has since upped the fundraising goal to $10,000, which will help cover the Seymour family’s expenses for travel, accommodations, food and more when they head to Toronto for the procedure next month. Due to a quick turnaround from Mounsteven’s idea to the actual event, he was unable to get the permits and other permissions necessary for a full-scale marathon, so this year’s event will be more of a test run. 

Locals can participate in a 5-kilometre fun run, but Mounsteven will be running the full 42-kilometre distance alone on Oct. 10. He plans to launch a larger scale version of the event next spring, hoping to make it an annual run with new fundraising recipients each year, and the Seymour family is the perfect beneficiary for the inaugural Mary Lake Marathon.

Mounsteven has known Scarlett’s mother Amanda for about four years through teaching and he met Scarlett’s father Jay when a tornado ripped through their neighbourhood in June 2020. Jay was the first one to offer help cleaning up fallen trees and debris, Mounsteven said, and Amanda is the same way, always offering support to her students, colleagues and other community members.

“They’re always there to help,” Mounsteven said. “Why don’t we as a community rally around these people who are always the ones who are there to help us? Essentially, that’s what I wanted to give people: the opportunity to say thank you and to support through a great initiative like this.”

Putting together the marathon and fundraiser has been a fulfilling and humbling experience, he said. As the father of two kids around the same age as Scarlett, it’s been emotional for Mounsteven, and it’s even more emotional for Amanda and her family. They’ve been through many ups and downs since Scarlett was born. After spending the first six months of her life in the hospital, a surgery that was meant to send her home nearly took her life. 

“She ended up going septic, having a code blue called at the hospital, and we were told to call our whole family in because there was no way that she was going to survive at six months of age,” Amanda said. “For some reason, she’s spunky, sassy, she came through this surgery.”

After that, Scarlett was on dialysis and continued her stay in the hospital for a total of over 500 days before returning home to Port Sydney for the first time. There’s been many return visits to the hospital since then, but Amanda said they’re on a good path with Scarlett’s health and the support from their home community has made a world of difference.

During Scarlett’s initial hospital stay, community members and local restaurants came together to create a fundraiser that brought in over $14,000 for the family. Another fundraiser a few months later raised nearly $4,000, so when Amanda heard that Mounsteven wanted to support them through yet another fundraiser, she was speechless.

“Our family is over the moon ecstatic that we have such a support system for our daughter,” Amanda said. “It’s going to be a long road for her [with] surgeries up until even her teen years, so it’s an overwhelming feeling.”

Scarlett has been on breathing support since birth and uses a feeding tube, but that should change with surgeries to come, Amanda said. In Scarlett’s next surgery on Oct. 28, doctors will be putting half of her stomach into her body to see if she can tolerate it. Putting her organs into her body too quickly could compromise her heart and lungs, Amanda said, so it’s a long process that they’re approaching with caution.

Every time Scarlett undergoes a surgery, gets her blood drawn, or has any other poke or procedure, she gets a bravery bead from her team at SickKids. She’s already collected hundreds and hundreds of beads, so it means a lot to her family to have the community’s support as she goes to collect even more in Toronto next month.

“I want to thank each and every person for their phone calls, their love, their support, just listening to her story, following our journey,” Amanda said. “This little girl’s so brave.”

To make a donation in support of the Seymour family, click here. For more information on the Mary Lake Marathon, visit the event page on Facebook.

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