But not without some tough criticism from community members.

The birthing unit closed Dec. 15, 2006 because there weren't enough doctors on-call to maintain safety standards, and not enough births in Alliston to reasonably hire two more full-time doctors without paying salary top-ups.

After a large public outcry to the closure, the board created the advisory committee to find a way to reopen the unit. It held its first meeting Wednesday (Jan. 3).

Led by acting chair Larry Keogh, the committee heard from Dr. Nigel Gripper about the change in lifestyle of obstetricians/family doctors.

Hy Eliasoph, chief executive officer of the Central Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) spoke on upcoming changes to the way health care will be handled and the LHIN's priorities in general.

Then Steve Miller, chief financial officer of the hospital, spoke about hospital funding and the cost of physician top-ups.

"Our hospital runs on $21 million in funding," said Miller. $2 million of that goes back to the physicians, but only $300,000 is directly for top-ups, he said. The rest of the $2 million is for paying doctors on-call hours and stipends for chiefs of staff.

Advisory committee member and doula, Mlissa Cowl, asked Miller if the hospital could keep leftover cash from labour and delivery closure and use it toward reopening the unit.

Miller said there won't be much savings left over, because the nursing staff is still working in the hospital.

"This year, there won't be much savings because only the labour and delivery has moved, the hospital can still do gynecological surgery and we have a shared care system, where extra staff can be used in the ER," said Miller. He said if there was any remaining money in the department, the hospital could carry a reserve over to the next fiscal year, which starts April 1.

Retired businessman and committee member Jim Roth said the hospital's reputation with mothers is important and when the unit reopens the board will have to work on improving it. He said the committee should create a plan sufficient enough to reopen the unit now, then worry about growing from there. "We need to find out what standards the mothers think will meet their needs so they'll come here."

For now, the committee will look at other labour and delivery models, including an integrated one recently developed by local midwives.

The committee's final report has to be submitted to the board by March 31.

But some residents attending the first meeting were critical about the lack of focus.

Dennis Butler from Green Briar said the meeting was unorganized and he felt administration had dealt the committee a "losing hand". Butler suggested the job of reopening the birthing unit should be up to Ed Takacs, chief executive officer of SMH, and Susan Plewes, vice-president, not a committee.

Sylvia Biffis, a member of a Concerned Citizens Committee, also wasn't impressed. Her group is doing its own work to save the birthing unit.

After attending the Wednesday night meeting, she feels her group will work better on its own, instead of working with the advisory committee.

"Based on the non-direction I see here tonight, we will work better on our own," said Biffis at the meeting.

She earlier told the Herald the group has some specific questions it wants answered by the board, most specifically how quickly the unit can reopen. The citizens' group met with board members at the end of December to ask questions and offer support. "We're asking the board how we can help them obtain their objectives. We felt they communicated very poorly with the community up to this point, and we want to know clear goals and clear timelines."

She said the citizens' group has not asked for the resignation of Takacs or Plewes, but Biffis said they will deal with the board as a corporation, and board members can be voted out.

"We know how things work and essentially how administration is hired and fired. We'll work through the system."

She said it's unfortunate the committee was given a limited timeline to turn something this big around.

The next time Biffis' group meets with board members is Wed., Jan. 17.