Wellington County’s administration, finance and personnel committee is recommending that county council consider a $9.4-million donation to hospitals within the county, and reject two requests from outside hospitals.
The money, if approved by county council at its June 26 meeting, would include $5 million donated to help build a new Groves hospital in Aboyne and $4.4 million split between Louise Marshall Hospital (LMH) in Mount Forest and Palmerston and District Hospital (PDH) for upgrades to emergency rooms and renovations to house pharmaceutical dispensing units.
On June 17 the committee heard requests from delegations from the three county hospitals, as well as from the Headwaters Health Care Foundation and its Orangeville hospital ($115,000) and the Georgetown hospital foundation ($100,000).
The Orangeville and Georgetown requests, according to representatives for the hospitals, were based on the number of Wellington County residents using their respective facilities.
Georgetown foundation executive director K.C. Carruthers said the hospital is undergoing a $14.2-million expansion and redevelopment project.
“This campaign is the largest campaign Georgetown and Halton Hills has seen in 40 years,” Carruthers said at the packed meeting.
The hospital’s emergency room sees about 32,000 patients annually, but when it was renovated four years ago it turned out the expansion could only meet half that number.
There is currently a $6.75-million fundraising campaign underway for the project, with Halton Hills donating $2.7 million.
The Orangeville hospital serves about 135,000 people and sees about 40,746 emergency room visits per year, said Liz Ruegg, hospital president and CEO. She estimated that about 1,644 emergency room visits are from Wellington residents.
Joan Burdette, executive director of the Headwaters hospital foundation, said the expansion and renovation plan at the hospital is aimed at providing more services and reducing wait times.
“Our main focus is we believe in giving people who come to our hospital the opportunity to donate,” she said of the funding request on behalf of Wellington residents using the hospital in Orangeville.
The Headwaters campaign is also looking at raising $10.5 million for medical equipment and has received a $500,000 donation from Dufferin County. They will be approaching that county for further donations. The out-of-county funding requests came as a result of Erin Mayor Lou Maieron’s invitation to the hospitals to apply for funding from Wellington County.
Maieron has spearheaded a campaign opposed to county funding of hospitals in Wellington. He has been joined by Erin resident and fellow county councillor Ken Chapman, who has opposed the use of county money to fund hospitals.
Maieron said public hospital funding should be done by municipalities where hospitals are located and not fall onto county residents who don’t use hospitals.
Chapman has already registered a notice of motion with county council calling on it to defer any county hospital funding until after the October municipal election.
“Those are the hospitals that serve my residents,” Maieron said of the requests from Georgetown and Orangeville.
The Erin mayor has estimated, based on information he received from county treasurer Ken DeHart, that approval of the $9.4-million request from the northern hospitals would cost Erin $1.4 million as its portion.
“Do we only fund hospitals within our own borders or based on the hospitals that serve them (residents),” Maieron said. “The question is, is this to look after health care for all the people of Wellington County or for the communities that have hospitals?”
Chapman accused the council of “discriminating” against residents living in the southern part of Wellington County by ruling out funding for hospitals outside the county which those residents use.
“We have to be fair to everyone living in the county,” Chapman said.
Heather Gergovich, incoming chair of the Groves foundation, pointed out hospital funding from the province does not include new equipment required.
The province requires 10 per cent of project costs be raised locally. But with equipment added, the breakdown is closer to 30% to 70%, said Warden Chris White.
The Groves foundation has already committed to raising $20 million for a new $100 million hospital in Fergus granted by the province. It was pointed out the hospital had no room to expand on its current site with the plan to build on 34 acres in Aboyne near the county museum and archives.
The Fergus hospital is considered one of the top three employers in the county with 33 doctors, 25 specialists, 99 nurses, 16 locums (temporary replacements who fill in when doctors are holidays), 17 health care professionals and some 254 volunteers. It has also been ranked as a top hospital based on patient satisfaction.
“People using our hospital are extremely pleased with the services they received,” said steering committee member Bob Cameron.
The hospital sees about 25,000 emergency visits annually.
“We should have an ER that should be quadruple in size,” steering committee Bob Ostic said. “Our new Groves facility will become the new model in rural health care delivery.”
He added, “This $5 million (county donation) ensures that Groves will be built.”
Presentations from Bob McFarlane of the LMH foundation, PDH president Luanne Ward and PDH development officer Dale Franklin highlighted their hospitals continue to come under pressure to improve service. Both hospitals have a coverage area of about 15,000 residents.
“We need to expand the existing emergency department and ambulatory care,” McFarlane said of work planned at LMH. The foundation has launched a $5-million fundraiser for the project to help meet provincial 10% requirements for local money raised. The 40-year-old hospital is in need of upgrades, McFarlane said.
“This is the largest, single campaign that has ever occurred in north Wellington,” he added.
So far the LMH campaign has raised $2.44 million, but additional money will be needed for renovations to house provincially-mandated automated pharmaceutical dispensing units.
The $2.2 million requests from LMH and PDH are based on a five-year commitment.
Ward said without upgrades at PDH the hospital would be
“unable to meet accreditation standards.”
“The total estimated cost of our projects is in excess of $3 million,” Franklin added in written statement. “This is over and above the normal annual equipment funding requests from the hospital.”
Ward stressed, “We need the financial support of Wellington County.”
DeHart said it was too early to estimate the cost to taxpayers should county council approve the $9.4-million in donations.
“As a worst case scenario we could fund this over 20 years at a 1% (tax) increase annually,” DeHart said referring to the $700,000 that would be needed annually to cover the cost of borrowing the money, should county council approve the arrangement.
Franklin said Maieron’s suggestion that Wellington hospitals get their own municipalities to pay for upgrades was not possible.
“There’s no way we could ask for $2.2 million from any lower tier municipality,” she said.
Warden Chris White said the reason for the delegation was to garner more information. He was also critical of Maieron’s claims about the process and Maieron’s suggestion the matter should be put off until a new county council is elected.
“The implication this isn’t open isn’t quite correct,” White said.
“The implication is some how we pulled this out of a hat and were going to plow this through … this is still (going) before a full, legitimate council.”
County council is expected to vote on the donations at its June 26 meeting.
