EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on SooToday on Oct. 17. It is being republished here for readers who may have missed it.
Now that the residential withdrawal management and safe beds facility has opened at the Northway Wellness Centre, Sault Area Hospital is actively seeking to add more of its services to the former Sault Star building in a second phase of construction.
In its original business cases presented to Ontario’s Ministry of Health in 2018 and revised in 2020, many of the hospital’s mental health and addictions services were to be consolidated under one roof, said Lisa Case, director of clinical program for mental health and addictions at Sault Area Hospital.
“Based on resources, both financial and human capital resources, it was recommended to us or directed to us that we split it up and do it in a phased approach to make it more manageable,” said Case. “I think yes that was, although frustrating in some ways because we know the synergies that would be available from a construction perspective and such, it was wise advice.”
Phase 1 was recently completed and opened in the former Sault Star site at a cost of about $20 million. The hospital’s residential withdrawal management and safe beds from its main site was relocated into an approximate 16,000 square foot portion of the building.
“This project has been incredibly valuable and meaningful for our team,” said Case. “It has also been exhausting. We are taking a quick breath and then pushing forward with this next phase.”
Case told SooToday the hospital’s application for funding Phase 2 has been presented to the Ministry of Health. Co-locating many of the hospital’s mental health and addictions services into the Northway site comes with an approximate price tag of $7.8 million over and above what has already been spent.
If approved, Phase 2 would see the relocation and consolidation of a number of existing off-site SAH programs into the currently unused 9,000 square foot portion of the building. Those services include the Addiction Treatment Clinic, Psychiatric Medication Clinic and Rapid Access Addiction Medicine Clinic.
If a separate funding request is also granted, the hospital’s Concurrent Disorders Intensive Day Treatment could also one day be offered from the Northway Wellness Centre.
Currently, people seeking services to treat mental health and addictions are required to attend different clinics spread throughout the community to get the full range of care required.
“People are having to bounce all over our community to get care, including if they need multiple appointments or supports with various team members on any given day,” said Case. “They spend most of their time on the bus or looking for a place to park. We would like to bring them all under one roof and be able to support people.”
Instead, said Case, patients could find many of the services that complement each other under one roof.
“Really, they could be walked from one side of the building to the other and get that immediate support or assessment from our care team,” she said.
If the funding request for Phase 2 is granted, it will create a one-stop shop for patients seeking care, said SAH’s Mental Health Program medical director Dr. Curtis Obadan.
“It’s about providing not just the acute support but also being able to provide a continuation of care and also engage in some form of rehabilitation for our clients,” said Obadan. “Having the second phase up and running would really help us to put the pieces in our puzzle [together] and hopefully help us to support our clients and provide sufficient care for them.”
Obadan said the sooner Phase 2 can be completed and the services moved to the site on Old Garden River Road, the better.
Sault MPP Ross Romano told SooToday it was not unexpected to see plans for Phase 2 submitted to the ministry, even if it came a little sooner than expected.
“This was expected, this was anticipated, this was welcomed,” Romano said of the application. “I didn’t necessarily appreciate that the application was going to be submitted shortly before the opening of Northway, but it was always something that was in the works.”
Romano said he will continue to advocate within the government for funding for the project.
“The additional resources that will be required from a financial perspective on just capital alone are going to be challenging but that is not going to, in any way, stop me from trying to pursue them,” he said.
The SAH services that would be moved to the Northway Wellness Centre already exist in the community, noted Romano.
“Being able to consolidate is a sensible thing to do, but by no means are we lacking in what our services are,” he said.
Case said between the time it opened on Sept. 25 to Oct. 9, Northway Wellness Centre had 40 admission to care with a length of stay anywhere from one night to two weeks. It has also received an increase in the number of calls from people asking about care in the facility.
“That is what we were aiming for, more people being able to access care that is appropriate for them in the right environment,” she said.
The fact SAH has delivered Phase 1 of the Northway Wellness Centre hopefully bodes well for the application for Phase 2, said Case.
“Based on our current reconciliation with our team we are on time and on budget and that, to me, describes to the ministry that our team locally and community partners can pull off a project of this size with success,” said Case.
While the new Northway Wellness Centre’s residential withdrawal management and safe beds service is now fully operational, another key part of Sault Area Hospital’s continuum of care for people living with mental health and addictions issues is experiencing longer-than-usual delays. Read SooToday’s coverage HERE.
MONTREAL – Travel company Transat AT Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue edged lower.
The parent company of Air Transat says it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31.
The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue in what was the company’s third quarter totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says demand for leisure travel remains healthy, as evidenced by higher traffic, but consumers are increasingly price conscious given the current economic uncertainty.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Dollarama Inc.’s food aisles may have expanded far beyond sweet treats or piles of gum by the checkout counter in recent years, but its chief executive maintains his company is “not in the grocery business,” even if it’s keeping an eye on the sector.
“It’s just one small part of our store,” Neil Rossy told analysts on a Wednesday call, where he was questioned about the company’s food merchandise and rivals playing in the same space.
“We will keep an eye on all retailers — like all retailers keep an eye on us — to make sure that we’re competitive and we understand what’s out there.”
Over the last decade and as consumers have more recently sought deals, Dollarama’s food merchandise has expanded to include bread and pantry staples like cereal, rice and pasta sold at prices on par or below supermarkets.
However, the competition in the discount segment of the market Dollarama operates in intensified recently when the country’s biggest grocery chain began piloting a new ultra-discount store.
The No Name stores being tested by Loblaw Cos. Ltd. in Windsor, St. Catharines and Brockville, Ont., are billed as 20 per cent cheaper than discount retail competitors including No Frills. The grocery giant is able to offer such cost savings by relying on a smaller store footprint, fewer chilled products and a hearty range of No Name merchandise.
Though Rossy brushed off notions that his company is a supermarket challenger, grocers aren’t off his radar.
“All retailers in Canada are realistic about the fact that everyone is everyone’s competition on any given item or category,” he said.
Rossy declined to reveal how much of the chain’s sales would overlap with Loblaw or the food category, arguing the vast variety of items Dollarama sells is its strength rather than its grocery products alone.
“What makes Dollarama Dollarama is a very wide assortment of different departments that somewhat represent the old five-and-dime local convenience store,” he said.
The breadth of Dollarama’s offerings helped carry the company to a second-quarter profit of $285.9 million, up from $245.8 million in the same quarter last year as its sales rose 7.4 per cent.
The retailer said Wednesday the profit amounted to $1.02 per diluted share for the 13-week period ended July 28, up from 86 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
The period the quarter covers includes the start of summer, when Rossy said the weather was “terrible.”
“The weather got slightly better towards the end of the summer and our sales certainly increased, but not enough to make up for the season’s horrible start,” he said.
Sales totalled $1.56 billion for the quarter, up from $1.46 billion in the same quarter last year.
Comparable store sales, a key metric for retailers, increased 4.7 per cent, while the average transaction was down2.2 per cent and traffic was up seven per cent, RBC analyst Irene Nattel pointed out.
She told investors in a note that the numbers reflect “solid demand as cautious consumers focus on core consumables and everyday essentials.”
Analysts have attributed such behaviour to interest rates that have been slow to drop and high prices of key consumer goods, which are weighing on household budgets.
To cope, many Canadians have spent more time seeking deals, trading down to more affordable brands and forgoing small luxuries they would treat themselves to in better economic times.
“When people feel squeezed, they tend to shy away from discretionary, focus on the basics,” Rossy said. “When people are feeling good about their wallet, they tend to be more lax about the basics and more willing to spend on discretionary.”
The current economic situation has drawn in not just the average Canadian looking to save a buck or two, but also wealthier consumers.
“When the entire economy is feeling slightly squeezed, we get more consumers who might not have to or want to shop at a Dollarama generally or who enjoy shopping at a Dollarama but have the luxury of not having to worry about the price in some other store that they happen to be standing in that has those goods,” Rossy said.
“Well, when times are tougher, they’ll consider the extra five minutes to go to the store next door.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
TORONTO – The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ordered TD Bank Group to pay US$28 million for repeatedly sharing inaccurate, negative information about its customers to consumer reporting companies.
The agency says TD has to pay US$7.76 million in total to tens of thousands of victims of its illegal actions, along with a US$20 million civil penalty.
It says TD shared information that contained systemic errors about credit card and bank deposit accounts to consumer reporting companies, which can include credit reports as well as screening reports for tenants and employees and other background checks.
CFPB director Rohit Chopra says in a statement that TD threatened the consumer reports of customers with fraudulent information then “barely lifted a finger to fix it,” and that regulators will need to “focus major attention” on TD Bank to change its course.
TD says in a statement it self-identified these issues and proactively worked to improve its practices, and that it is committed to delivering on its responsibilities to its customers.
The bank also faces scrutiny in the U.S. over its anti-money laundering program where it expects to pay more than US$3 billion in monetary penalties to resolve.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
