$7.3M investment signals long future for Wallaceburg hospital – Chatham Daily News

WALLACEBURG – A $7.3-million Ontario government grant to build a new power plant for the hospital here sends a strong signal the health-care facility will remain open for many years to come.

“This is an investment in not only the care and delivery and services here today, it’s an investment in the future, because this does provide a substantial backbone for a further redevelopment of this site in the future,” said Lori Marshall, president and CEO of the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance following the funding announcement Friday.

Monte McNaughton, minister of labour, training and skills development, who made the funding announcement on behalf of Health Minister Christine Elliott, also indicated more money is coming.

“This will be the first stage of a redevelopment plan,” he said, adding there are plans to move the emergency room and diagnostic imaging to a new location on the north side of the hospital.

Marshall said building a new power plant, estimated to take a year to complete, is a commitment to future expansion.

“If we were just looking at sustaining the current building, we would not have needed the level of infrastructure that is going into this power plant,” she said.

“What the power plant actually does is gives us the level of infrastructure to truly support a new build, new code requirements all those kinds of things.”

Marshall said $7.3 million covers the cost of building the new power plant, along with the 10 per cent local requirement the hospital group had in reserve, so no fundraising will be needed.

She said plans have already been submitted for consideration to the Health Ministry for redeveloping the emergency room, diagnostic imaging and laboratory areas.

However, Marshall noted there is no firm timeline for when this expansion could happen.

Other future plans for upgrading the hospital include expanding ambulatory care, including specialty clinics, along with respiratory therapy, physiotherapy and laboratory services.

Walpole Island Chief Charles Sampson said the First Nations community has a long history with the hospital, noting many people from Walpole Island have worked there.

“The people of Walpole Island are very thankful of the tireless efforts from all the front-line, essential health-care workers in Chatham-Kent,” he added.

McNaughton noted the importance of local health care has only been amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic.

While fighting COVID-19 remains a priority, the MPP for Lambton-Kent-Middlesex said the provincial government intends “to invest in things that matter to people in Southwestern Ontario and beyond.”

When built in the 1950s at a cost of approximately $900,000, the Wallaceburg hospital “became a jewel of the community,” Greg Aarssen, the hospital board’s chair, said.

He added renewed focus on the site has seen reinvestment in the emergency department, additional respiratory therapy coverage, capital equipment upgrades and the addition of specialty clinics, as well as a partnership to provide community care nursing clinics.

“All of these set the stage for the reinvestment we are seeing from the Ontario government to ensure that hospital services remain an important part of this community,” Aarssen said.

However, it wasn’t that many years ago the community was fighting to keep the emergency department open and halt plans to have the site become an urgent care centre.

Wallaceburg Coun. Carmen McGregor said her first term on council included walking into a community effort by the citizen group, Save Our Sydenham, to fight to keep the hospital open.

“It was quite an initiation as a councillor to come into,” she said.

McGregor credited being able to work with former Wallaceburg councillor Jeff Wesley and the determination of the community to now see this “great news” for the future.

Noting she and fellow Wallaceburg Coun. Aaron Hall are working on initiatives to revitalize the downtown core, McGregor said, the hospital announcement “solidifies the direction we want to move in and will now encourage people to relocate to our community.”

Hall said Wallaceburg residents not only donated to build the hospital, but the whole community rallied for years to ensure it stayed open and viable.

He said the province isn’t going to invest more than $7 million if the hospital isn’t here to stay.

“It’s great news for Wallaceburg, great news for the future of the hospital,” Hall said.

eshreve@postmedia.com