Growing a hospital
Research, planning and legal steps make redevelopment dream seem real
If you stand on the shoulder of County Road 30, north of Campbellford, and stare at Jim Curle’s field of dreams you can almost see the outline of a hospital.
At least that’s the way it feels following recent actions that make it feel that the dream of a new facility will become reality in just a few years.
On June 2, Trent Hills council approved the severance of Curle’s 19.7-hectare (48.7- acre) donation for a new hospital. That sets the stage for him to finally get to donate that piece of land. It will still need to be rezoned from prime agricultural land to institutional use and the planners and lawyers are still figuring out the best way to do that.
Last Thursday, the consultants hired to make the new hospital a reality spoke in glowing terms of how their work is going. Their enthusiasm and confidence that “this project is a no brainer for any government” as one told me, helps inspire belief that this will happen.
The information session at the Sunny Life Recreation and Wellness Centre was light on financial details, since the ministry has advised hospital executives not to repeat previous comments about a $400-million facility because the actual cost will likely be much higher once it is completed.
The session also didn’t talk about a target completion date, but Jeff Hohenkerk, CMH’s President and Chief Executive Officer, and John Russell, Executive Director of the Campbellford Memorial Hospital Foundation, told attendees at a fundraising concert at the Aron Theatre Coop two weeks ago that they are targeting 2032, a short six years from now, for the opening.
But the information session did outline the research that’s been done so far and how it is guiding the plan that the hospital hopes to submit to the Ministry of Health in November.
Data expert Gavin Wardle, a partner in Preyra Solutions Group, who has a PhD in health services research, outlined what he’s learned about the area our hospital serves, what we can expect demographically, and what that means for the services we’ll need.
No surprise, there are a lot of old people here. But the surprise may be how many of us are soon going to be really old.
Wardle says that over the next 20 years the number of people over the age of 85 will increase by 170 per cent. Our redeveloped hospital will focus on providing care for those seniors.
On the other hand, for sure we won’t need a maternity ward.
Dialysis is one service that will be in the forefront of the recommendation to the health ministry since providing care closer to home saves time and money.
The need for more long-term care beds so that people aren’t stuck in hospital waiting for a bed, already a major problem, is not going to go away, Wardle said. The planned new long-term care facility adjacent to the hospital will help, but more will be needed.
The campus of care plan with long-term care and assisted housing nearby is our “magic potion” that will drive the hospital redevelopment, said Nash Syed of Trans4mation Solutions Consulting.
“The campus of care is a differentiating factor and the underlying foundation for an exciting opportunity,” he said.
“Seniors will be at the centre of the new facility,” Syed said, adding that there will be an increased focus on mental health services as well.
He stressed that in years to come the new hospital will have to continue to develop partnerships with other facilities in order to meet our needs.
Syed explained that the new facility will have space for a different approach to emergency medicine that will focus on flexibility and individual care.
Shannon Crowder of Resource Planning Group Inc. outlined the multi-step planning process that’s under way. She predicted three years of planning, followed by three years of construction.
The goal is to have a detailed plan to submit this November that will answer most questions the health ministry is likely to have, she said. The next phase after that will involve detailed planning and architectural work that will get closer to a firm cost estimate.
You can get more information on the hospital’s redevelopment website or follow it on social media. Or take a drive up CR30 and dream a little.
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