Proponents say Windsor’s pursuit of a mega-hospital has taken a giant leap forward after the boards of the city’s two existing hospitals agreed unanimously on a plan that includes who gets to run the $1.6-billion state-of-the-art facility, The Star has learned.
“This is huge,” said one of the principals involved in the talks that ended with a deal on how the two hospitals will govern and share the services they provide.
The province, following up on last fall’s favourable task force report, pledged on Jan. 24 to provide $37.5 million for the necessary preliminary work on a complex effort that could take up to 10 years or more. But only the first $2.5 million was committed, with the rest being made available subject to when, and if, Windsor Regional and Hotel-Dieu Grace could agree on the future governance structure and on how core services would be provided.
Sharing turf between Windsor’s faith-based and non-demoninational hospital systems has been discussed in the past, but there’s never been any agreement.
“It’s been a difficult issue to deal with in this community — for decades,” said a source, one of two main players who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a news conference Tuesday afternoon. “This is pretty unprecedented,” added the other source.
Faced with growing budgetary pressures, as well as fearful of an outright rejection by the province if the two sides couldn’t agree on something both see as critical, historic differences were set aside in favour of a plan to share Windsor’s hospital services.
“I’m amazed at how fast it moved — this should show the province our city is very serious about this,” one of the sources told The Star.
Details of the proposal, which has now been sent for approval to the Ministry of Health and the Erie-St. Clair LHIN, will be made public at a news conference Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. at Windsor Regional Hospital’s Tayfour campus. The CEOs, board chairs and chiefs of staff of both hospitals will outline the plan.
The sources emphasized the plan does not call for a merger or amalgamation of the two hospitals, but there would be significant short-term and long-term changes.
Windsor Regional would govern and operate the new regional acute care facility, whose location must still be decided. If the currently proposed governance plan is approved, changes will begin almost immediately, with Windsor Regional taking over the management and operations of all acute-care services currently provided at Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital.
The current HDGH site would be downsized to an urgent-care centre with some ambulatory services and day surgeries but no in-patient beds. Under a lease arrangement, Hotel-Dieu would assume management of all non-acute programs and services currently offered by Windsor Regional at its west-side Tayfour campus.
Under the long-term plan — creation of a new state-of-the-art mega-hospital — Windsor Regional’s Metropolitan campus would be deemed surplus, with the cancer centre also moving, its building possibly becoming a medical centre.
dschmidt@windsorstar.com or on Twitter: @schmidtcity
