A healthy expansion for the hospital

This week's story about the updated plans for the Hawkesbury and District General Hospital expansion contains surprising news. The $21-million expansion announced a few years ago has become a $93-million redevelopment project, set to overhaul the existing facility, which is now 25 years old.
The hospital, originally built to see around 15,000 patients per year, is now attempting to serve more than 32,000 patients per year. The updated plans would see the hospital double in size, if the project is approved by the provincial ministry of health and long-term care.
An additional project includes the creation of a 24,000-square-foot medical centre on hospital property in partnership with doctors in the Lower Outaouais Family Health Team, which includes 22 family doctors, as well as nurse practitioners, registered nurses, social workers and dieticians.
Yet another project on the table is the conversion of the Trillium building (located near the hospital and currently managed by a consortium of physicians) to a regional mental health centre.  This latter idea is still just a dream, according to the hospital CEO.
A million-dollar planning grant received in August 2008 brought these changes to the original $21-million hospital expansion plan.
While it is hard to argue with the coming needs of an aging population, seeing the price tag quadruple of the initial project quadruple still gives pause.
While we are living in what many acknowledge to be tough times, it is staggering to consider a project of this size at this time.
And as the acting chief of staff says, the additional of a medical centre may give the hospital a new tool to use when recruiting physicians to the area; the centre would be a place to learn and to teach.
If these new initiatives do indeed attract physicians to the area an improve patient access and quality of care, it will be worth the multi-million-dollar investment in the Hawkesbury facility.
Area residents and businesses have already invested millions in the facility if one considers past fundraising and the recent $5 million raised for the hospital expansion project.
It remains to be seen if the new and improved hospital will consider outreach clinics or partnerships in the smaller rural communities sorely lacking in medical services.
Given last week's health report card of our region, which indicates that we in Eastern Ontario are at greater risk for heart disease, let us hope that in addition to lobbying for this $93-million expansion, our politicians and our government can come up with a plan to inject creativity and money into education about healthy lifestyles and reduce some of the pressure on our local health care system.                                              L.S.