A shot in the arm for health and long-term-care

After months of meetings, discussions and sometimes heated debate, it gave me great satisfaction to put the issue of long-term-care distribution in Haldimand to bed with the announcement of 64 new beds at Parkview Meadows in Townsend.

It was eight years ago representatives from Parkview first met with me to discuss the possibility of nursing home beds - I congratulate those involved for their patience and optimism as we worked to make their dream a reality.

The Parkview announcement is one of many to strengthen health and long-term-care services in Haldimand-Norfolk-Brant recently.

In May, the first piece of Haldimand’s long-term-care puzzle fell into place when a new partnership was announced that will see 128 beds remain at Grandview Lodge with an additional 64 beds to be operated at Haldimand War Memorial hospital.

The bed allocation is part of our government’s plan to build 20,000 new long-term care beds across the province by 2005.

While strengthening long-term-care in our area, our government has also been announcing support and improvements for other health services that will benefit the people of our three counties.

Last summer, I attended the ground-breaking ceremony for the new Norview Lodge. The Provincial Government is investing close to $13 million, over the next 20 years, into Norview.

More recently, Minister of Health and Long-Term Care Tony Clement confirmed additional Ministry support of $2,949,190 for Norfolk General Hospital’s ambitious emergency room expansion project.

The announcement covers additional costs over the originally approved funding of $5,284,148. The revised ministry grant of up to $8,233,338, represents approximately 50 per cent of the revised total project costs of $16,529,676.

This news followed on the heels of Ministry approval for a CT Scanner at NGH, marking months of perseverance and patience by hospital board members, my office, and the people of Norfolk. 

The new diagnostic equipment offers people in our area reduced waiting times and access to CT services right here in Norfolk.

Similarly, down the road in Tillsonburg, I was happy to join Oxford MPP Ernie Hardeman to announce dialysis services for Tillsonburg District Memorial Hospital – again, bringing treatment closer to home for patients in Oxford, Elgin and Norfolk Counties.

In addition to offering increased and improved services for people of this area, the Eves government has also increased funding to hospitals by $620 million - part of an unprecedented $10.4 billion commitment to support Ontario hospitals.

As we make these healthy investments, our government continues to deal with both the health and tourism related impacts created by the SARS crisis.  To this point, SARS related costs have reached close to $1.13 billion – an impact that so far the province has had to suffer through by itself, without the support of our federal government.

In the meantime our government will continue to move ahead.  We will continue with our health and long-term care plan to improve bed space, enhance core services, improve wait times, and promote wellness.