It’s a go! Ontario green lights Windsor’s new hospital in provincial budget

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Wednesday was a critical, green-light moment in the nine-year quest to build a state-of-the-art acute-care hospital to replace the city’s antiquated Met and Ouellette facilities.

“Unbelievable excitement for health care in our region. This is it,” an emotional Windsor Regional Hospital CEO David Musyj said in virtual news conference, responding to the confirmation in Ontario’s 2021 budget that Windsor is moving to Stage 2 of its new-hospital project. It’s also getting $9.8 million to fund the two years of complex planning and design that’s required before moving to construction of the $2-billion “megahospital” on County Road 42.

Approval of Stage 2 along with funding “means we’re building a new hospital,” Musyj confirmed.

“Once they make that commitment, this is it, we’ve got it, we’re moving ahead, this is reality now.”

I was extremely, extremely pleased

In 2017, the then-Liberal government made the same sort of announcement just prior to the election, but never mentioned or provided any money, so hope faded away. That’s not the case with the Conservative commitment, Musyj said. The specific funding of $9.8 million backs up the promise made in Windsor last August, when Premier Doug Ford said he’d be an “800-pound gorilla” fighting for the new hospital.

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“The 800-pound gorilla delivered, so kudos to him. Promise made, promise kept,” said Musyj. When asked about his emotions on Wednesday, he said:

“There hasn’t been a lot to be happy for, for any of us, during the last 13 months (of the pandemic.) Short of the birth of my son and marriage to my wife, this is up there.

“I can’t be happier. Really, it’s unbelievable.”

The announcement for Windsor was part of a $30-billion basket of approvals for hospital building, expansion or improvements across the province.

“Mr. Speaker, I’m very pleased to announce today that we are supporting the plan for a new regional hospital in Windsor-Essex,” Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy said as he delivered the 2021 provincial budget.

In an emailed statement to the Star, the premier said building the new hospital will be a game-changer for the Windsor community and the families who live here.

“I couldn’t be more proud to support this project with a nearly $10 million investment in planning, getting us one step closer to making this hospital a reality,” he said.

Many consider the premier’s visit to Windsor and his lunch meeting with area mayors as a watershed moment. Every single mayor, including the mayor of Chatham-Kent, told him their No. 1 priority was the new hospital. Ford came away from that meeting declaring that his No. 1 priority was “to give proper health care to Windsor-Essex.”

“I was extremely, extremely pleased,” that Ford was listening and his government followed through, County of Essex Warden Gary McNamara said Wednesday after the budget speech.

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He said there’s no question that the current pandemic has underlined the inadequacy of the current hospital facilities, with some buildings more than a century old, and with a dire shortage of the private rooms needed to keep infected patients isolated. “It’s almost third-world when you think of what you’ve got — tarps and duct tape and simulated ducting and portable fans to create facilities to deal with the pandemic. The lack of private rooms, it just goes on and on.”

He said hospital staff have done remarkable work despite the deficiencies of their buildings. Now is the time to move on, he said.

“Windsor and Essex County residents have told us very clearly and consistently that they want to see a shovel in the ground.”

Stage 2 of the five-stage process involves developing a functional program, which is a very detailed look at everything that’s needed to provide care in the hospital. Musyj said the considerable work starts Thursday and could take 24 months. “We cannot wait,” he said.

“You break it down program by program and you examine how it’s to function in works and then you take those words and you give it to architects to design a hospital around those words rather than the other way around,” he said.

Members of the public who have an interest in a particular area — the cancer program, for example — will be asked to participate.

Musyj said his hospital’s experience during the pandemic may well shape how the new hospital is designed. An early expectation that it would have 80 per cent private rooms, for example, might be changed to 100 per cent private.

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The existing facilities are old and tired, he said, remarking this is the second pandemic for at least some portions of the hospital, where people were treated during the 1918 Spanish flu.

“They’ve done well, but we’ve really got to move into 21st century health care from a facilities point of view and we’re not near it.”

He said the sooner the functional program can be completed, the sooner the hospital can be built, “which is desperately needed for our community.” Stage 3 involves preliminary design, followed by the bidding process in Stage 4 and construction in Phase 5.

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens, who’s been relentlessly campaigning for the new hospital for years, credited the community-wide support for the project, including the We Can’t Wait campaign launched last summer by the economic development corporation.

“We should all be really proud of the work we did standing together to see better health care delivered for our region,” said Dilkens, whose municipality fought a long legal battle with Citizens for an Accountable Megahospital Planning Process, which opposed the County Road 42 location.

“Today, having $9.8 million enunciated in the budget document and having the Minister of Finance mention it in his speech, there is no greater indication that this project is moving forward and the province is behind it big-time,” said the mayor.

Dilkens said the project will have a “huge, huge” impact on local health care and also the economy.

“It could literally be — with five years of (Gordie Howe) bridge construction, and three years of hospital construction and everything else that’s going on — a decade of prosperity for Windsor-Essex.”

bcross@postmedia.com