It’s official. Windsor-Essex wants its super-hospital.
“We strongly recommend that the provincial government proceed immediately in approving the planning and construction of a single-site acute care hospital for the Windsor-Essex region,” Piruzza told reporters on Friday morning.
A diagram of the various additions at the Windsor Regional Hospital is seen during a press conference at St. Clair College in Windsor on Friday, December 7, 2012. The three were part of a task force that looked at building a single hospital in Windsor to replace the two current aging hospitals. (TYLER BROWNBRIDGE / The Windsor Star)
The 16-page report has been sent to the provincial ministers of health and finance for their feedback. Piruzza said she does not know how long it will take the ministers to review the report and decide on the next steps, but that she certainly hoped it will be a positive response.
Responding to questions about whether political outcomes could affect the final decision, Piruzza said that regardless of what happens in provincial government over the next few years, a government of whatever political stripe has to look at the needs of Windsor-Essex residents.
Now the community has to really get behind the idea to keep the pressure on Queen’s Park, no matter what party is in power, Cooke said.
“The recommendation we’re making today is not just the three of us,” he said. “It’s owned by the community.”
In April this year, Windsor MPP Dwight Duncan (L – Windsor Tecumseh) established the task force to meet with Windsorites and discuss the possibility of amalgamating the two existing city hospitals into one modernized site.
The task force’s mandate was to gauge public sentiment on whether a super-hospital would deliver better care, whether it would deliver value for money and what special concerns would have to be addressed if it were to be built.
Over the past seven months, Cooke, Piruzza and Porter met with the staff at all three hospitals in Windsor-Essex, their boards, long-term care homes, the university and college, the LHIN, labour groups and social service agencies.
Community groups and leaders publicly voiced support for more discussion on the super-hospital, including the Windsor-Essex Chamber of Commerce, Dr. Fouad Tayfour and Windsor Regional Hospital CEO David Musyj.
Piruzza said the task force was very surprised at how consistent the positive response was from the community.
One of the concerns that was raised most often at the consultations was the location, Piruzza said. While it was not part of the task force’s mandate to explore questions of location, cost and administrative structure – those would be looked at in the next phases of planning – they certainly made a note of it and recommended the planning process take into careful consideration the question about where the new hospital would go, she said.
As well, accessibility, particularly for air ambulance, was another question that came up, she said, and will have to be considered as the discussion goes forward.
The task force report does not include any cost considerations, although Piruzza said that it’s estimated a facility like this would cost in the range of $1.2-$1.6 billion. As well, the first phase of consultations was not meant to offer up any solutions as to what would happen to the existing downtown hospital sites if a super-hospital were built.
According to the task force, rebuilding the Met campus of Windsor Regional Hospital or adding new floors to Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital would cost an estimated $2 billion.
These questions about location, cost, administration and what to do with the existing hospital sites are “very real considerations,” Porter said. Finding those answers was not part of this first phase of consultations, he said, but some good solutions did emerge.
The task force members said a super-hospital would still be eight to 10 years away, and so there still has to be a focus on keeping Windsor-Essex’s existing hospitals up-to-date.
Both Hotel-Dieu Grace and Windsor Regional occupy square footages and have patient capacities that are much smaller than the current hospital standards, the task force report showed. As well, the ratio of private to semi-private rooms ought to be reversed to fit with current benchmarks. Both hospitals have plans in place to either expand or modernize as needed over the coming years.
Steve Erwin, a spokesman for Hotel-Dieu Grace, said the hospital board and administration were generally in support of the idea of a super-hospital.
“Going forward, it’s a lot of planning,” Erwin said, but for now, it’s “business as usual” at the hospital.
Piruzza said that it’s important to keep in mind the super-hospital is just one point on a larger health care service continuum in the region. The hospital on its own won’t solve all the community’s health care issues, she said, so it’s important to not lose sight of the other elements of health care delivery.
Windsor has already undergone one phase of hospital amalgamation to streamline health care delivery and eliminate duplication of services between Windsor’s hospitals.
In the early 1990s, to pre-empt a forced closing, the Salvation Army Grace Hospital and Hotel-Dieu formed the first voluntary alliance of two denominational hospitals in Canada, announcing their merger in 1993. The following year, Windsor’s Metropolitan hospital merged with Windsor Western to form Windsor Regional Hospital.
bfantoni@windsorstar.com or Twitter.com/bfantoni
A diagram of the various additions at Hotel Dieu Grace hospital is seen during a press conference at St. Clair College in Windsor on Friday, December 7, 2012. The three were part of a task force that looked at building a single hospital in Windsor to replace the two current aging hospitals. (TYLER BROWNBRIDGE / The Windsor Star)
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