Southlake Regional Health Centre unveiled its vision for the future of its Newmarket facility as an urgent care facility, with acute care moving elsewhere.
Newmarket council heard Sept. 28 how the hospital is seeking to redevelop the existing facility as part of its plan for a new hospital. Although the organization aims to build a new hospital building at a yet to be determined location, it also intends to upgrade its 596 Davis Dr. facility. The renovations would include the urgent care centre, interventional ambulatory services and public circulation.
Newmarket Mayor John Taylor said though some residents have questioned why the town is not fighting for Southlake to keep more services at the existing site — and in Newmarket — ensuring a new hospital is built, and decreasing the development costs, is more important.
“You have to think beyond your own community and ensure the best health care is being delivered,” he said.
Southlake is lobbying the province to build a new hospital, with an expected completion between 2030 and 2035. Capital development director Peter Green said the organization did consider renovating to keep all services on its current site or moving all services to a new site, but both options were more costly and faced hurdles. In contrast, Southlake has argued splitting services between two sites is the best utilization of resources.
Southlake staff said utilizing the existing site, concentrated around the east building, will help avoid problems like building expansive parking structures, and mitigates the operational challenges posed by future renovations in an active hospital that would be required without the addition of a new hospital to the system.
Southlake would also relocate 60 rehabilitative care beds currently situated off-site in the downtown Toronto to 596 Davis Dr., expanding to 75 within 10 years.
The hospital expects to maintain 18,150 patient visits a week at the current site when the new hospital opens.
“Bringing patients closer to home," Green said. “That’s a lot of visits still going on at the existing campus.”
Green added they plan to add a wayfinding concourse to its east building to make the site easier to navigate.
“If anyone has been on campus over the last 10 to 15 years, you know you have a hard time finding your way through the building,” he said. “(We will) make this a simpler building to get through once we’ve vacated the acute care services.”
The Newmarket site will retain surgical procedures, urgent care, diagnostic imaging, and outpatient medical care, while acute and emergency services would move to a new unknown undeveloped site.
The organization is planning this to accommodate growth in York Region. The total project cost is forecasted to be $1.9 billion over 10 years, which is less than other options such as renovating to keep all services on site ($2.4 billion) or moving all services to a new site ($2.7 billion).
Southlake has held town halls over the past several weeks to rally community support and is awaiting a grant from the province to move ahead with early planning after submitting a capital request in January 2020.
Capital, facilities and business development vice-president John Marshman said the provincial treasury board meets through the fall, so they would expect an announcement between late fall to late winter if it gets the funding before the next provincial election in 2022.
“That’s why we’re trying to keep the pressure up now,” strategy, analytics, and communications vice-president Tyler Chalk said.
Some of that funding would have to be raised by the community, as the province does not fund elements such as parking and medical equipment. But Taylor said there would have to be dialogue around that, given the high costs of the initiative.
He said everyone has experienced Southlake’s capacity issues, and they will only get worse with York's growth over the next decade.
“The pressure is only going to grow,” Taylor said. "That’s why it’s important to make sure this tries to move as quickly as it possibly can.”
