At its December meeting, Huntsville Council was given a breakdown of what has been contributed to date for Muskoka Algonquin Health Care’s two new hospital builds.
MAHC representatives have been visiting municipalities to rally their support for two new hospital builds and raising the local funds needed to get shovels in the ground.
The Town of Huntsville has allocated $115,000; the District of Muskoka has added an accumulative $1.6M and the Town of Bracebridge has chipped in about $230,000 over the past years.
“Thanks to all of you. It’s really, really important to get started early,” MAHC’s board chair Moreen Miller told council.
MAHC CEO Cheryl Harrison was also at the meeting and explained the need for two hospitals. She said space at both sites is tight and the layout is no longer functional when it comes to the number of people served and said MAHC is consistently over capacity.
“A patient shouldn’t have to wait on a stretcher for six hours or more before they can be admitted to a room in a hospital. Ideally, we should be running our occupancy between 85 and 90 per cent and we are consistently over 100 per cent,” she said on December 14, noting that the week before MAHC was at 130 per cent.
She said provincial standards are also not being met. For example, the provincial standard for the number of private rooms is 80 per cent, while at MAHC that number is just 15 per cent.
Harrison said the majority of the rooms at MAHC are two or four-patient rooms. She said private rooms are not just a luxury. They’re important for infection control and privacy for both patients and their families.
“The lack of private rooms at MAHC has been a considerable challenge over the last three years as we’ve been trying to manage through the pandemic.”
She said there has been a lot of talk about why can’t MAHC just renovate. “Whenever we make changes, we must meet current standards and the limits of our capacity to renovate are getting smaller and smaller. Even small renovations cost two to three times what you would expect as the result of the requirement to meet current standards and because of the need to remediate building issues like asbestos.”
More functional space and better equipment will also help in the efforts to attract more medical staff to the area.
The province has approved two hospitals – one on new lands in Bracebride, and one on the existing site in Huntsville, but the approval is contingent on the area raising the local share (about 30 per cent) of the cost.
“If we don’t have a local share formula articulated to the Province when we submit our plan, the plan will go to the side and they’ll look at another hospital. So it’s that simple I think,” said Miller.
Councillor Dan Armour asked what the bed count would look like with the new builds, Harrison said MAHC would go up by 60 beds.
Councillor Scott Morrison said he’s heard many numbers about how long building the hospitals might take. Based on how long it has taken other health organizations to get through the different stages, he asked how long it would take MAHC to build the two hospitals.
“We are working on the assumption that given all the requirements needed to go through the three stages of planning, that we will be in a position to be tendering this project and, shovels in the ground, some time between five years from now, and ten years from now. Given that when we submitted our preliminary studies it was more than two years before we heard back from the province, we need to accommodate that, but if everything went smoothly, and everybody checked the boxes, we could put shovels in the ground with an approved tender as early as five years from now,” said Miller.
The problem is the longer it takes, the higher the cost. On December 20, 2022, MAHC issued a media release with an updated cost estimate.
“What we now know is because of post-pandemic prices, if the original project plan was built today, the initial 2019 estimate of a $561 million project would have increased about 30 per cent to a 2022 cost of $722 million and the community’s share in today’s dollars would have grown to $167 million,” stated Miller in the release. “Efforts to forecast the potential cost at the time of construction in five to 10 years estimate the project could be $967 million with a local share of about $225 million to be raised. We also know how important it is for the region, not only to us but also for our greater communities, to have high quality, safe care through two new hospitals.”
MAHC will be relying on its hospital foundations, municipalities, its own organization and other user groups to come up with the local share dollars. MAHC is hoping to submit its Stage 1.3 Functional Program by September 30th.
Community meetings are scheduled for January. In Huntsville, a public meeting will take place on January 16 from 7 to 8:30 pm at the Active Living Centre.
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One hospital and satellite triage. Look at other regions and cities who have greater populations and only one hospital.
Paramedic and ambulance services are part of the system – use effectively in a one hospital system.
Not against the amount, just use in one spot and save millions.
Maybe amalgamate with Orillia/Barrie/ North Bay and Muskoka to create the Hwy 11 Healthcare corridor. Lots of doctors, nurses, technicians, and less politics and administration.
Take back YOUR healthcare.
GOOD LUCK !!!