With the population growing across Simcoe County, members of the Orillia District Chamber of Commerce have thrown their support behind a new hospital in Orillia to keep up with demand.
Representatives of Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital (OSMH), as well as municipal and regional politicians, attended a virtual open forum, hosted by the chamber Friday morning, to discuss the need to enhance local infrastructure.
“Over the past five years, we’ve had the privilege to interact with tens of thousands of individuals who have really humbled us in the resounding support for a new hospital,” said Tom Roberts, chief financial officer and vice-president of corporate services with OSMH.
“Our community is growing, and while we felt this anecdotally over the past two years, the 2021 census released last month has given credence to this,” he said. “Our census subdivisions, which are the Chippewas of Rama First Nation, Orillia, Oro-Medonte, Ramara and Severn – growth ranged from 7.2 to 13.7 per cent, compared to the provincial average of 5.8 per cent.”
Although the hospital has increased its beds by 40 per cent over the past four years, it will still be at capacity once its newest beds are added to the inventory next week, Roberts explained.
“As of next fiscal year, which also happens to be one week from today, we’re planning to operate 186 patient beds, (and) we’ll be at capacity once those beds are open,” he said. “After these additional beds open next week, future growth will come at the expense of other patient services, and this is an unacceptable trade-off in our opinion.”
Aging demographics, as well as the aging hospital’s inability to meet current infection prevention standards, were highlighted as additional reasons for a new hospital.
“The pandemic has also magnified the age of our facility from an infection prevention and control (IPAC) perspective,” Roberts said. “One hundred per cent of our building, including the community tower, was designed pre-SARS, which means that modern IPAC design concepts are not incorporated into our footprint.”
Roberts also noted that construction, alone, could bring the equivalent of 7,000 full-time jobs to the area, with $800 million in value added to the local economy.
“We need to view health-care infrastructure as a critical contributor to help our collective economic recovery and growth,” he said.
The hospital submitted its Stage 1 redevelopment plan to the province in June 2019, and it is awaiting approval by the province to proceed to Stage 2 of the process.
Municipal politicians from the area highlighted the importance of advocating for the new hospital at various levels of government.
“Although health care is not in a local municipality’s mandate, economic development is, and people coming to an area for jobs, they're looking for health care as being one of the key components,” said Oro-Medonte Mayor Harry Hughes.
The mayors of Ramara and Severn pointed to development projects that are underway as indicators of additional growth to come.
“We have a subdivision of … 400 homes, and I believe they’re working hard on Phase 1, which is 100 homes,” said Ramara Mayor Basil Clarke. “That's going to put a demand on the health-care system, once these houses get going.”
It's a similar scenario in Severn Township.
“Severn is growing in leaps and bounds and we’ve … got close to 1,000 homes right now on the books ready to be built, so it’s amazing the amount of people that are looking to invest not only in Severn but in the area,” said Severn Mayor Mike Burkett. “We’ll continue to lobby the province, hoping they understand how much (a new hospital is) needed in our area.”
Simcoe North MPP Jill Dunlop said she is glad to work with the province to forward discussions about a new hospital.
“I’m happy to be part of the process and to be working with the Ministry of Health to get some answers, and to set up meetings, and I think they’ve been very responsive to our area, so we’ll continue those discussions,” she said.
Dunlop said the government has been working to expand the province’s supply of doctors and nurses, as well, by creating new educational opportunities.
“We get a lot of calls to our office about people needing doctors around our region, so this will be welcome news for everyone, and includes expansions at all the medical schools across the province, as well as two new medical schools – the Ryerson school in Brampton, and the the U of T school in Scarborough,” she said.
“Back in the fall, I was able to announce with Georgian College that they were able to offer their own standalone nursing degree program,” she added. “This will help to ensure, or at least give students the opportunity to go to school, finish their school and work in their local communities.”
