The top official at the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance (CKHA) is hopeful municipal council will make the hospital a priority during upcoming budget deliberations.
CKHA made a presentation to Chatham-Kent Council earlier this month to ask the municipality for $4.5 million to pay for a portion of the redevelopment costs for the hospital’s Wallaceburg site.
While the provincial government is expected to fund 90 per cent of the redevelopment costs, CKHA President and CEO Lori Marshall said the hospital will need to put forward the other 10 per cent.
“In addition to that, we have to identify and pay for all of the equipment that’s needed and all of the furniture, the fixtures and those sorts of things,” said Marshall.
The hospital will need to raise approximately $8.9 million for the redevelopment, and the hospital’s request to the municipality accounts for roughly half of the local funding share.
“That would be a really great thing in terms of, not only a contribution, but it also is a commitment that we can then share with [upper levels of] government and say, ‘look, our community is behind us,'” said Marshall.
Marshall added that hospital officials have been inviting council members on tours of the Wallaceburg site to see the current progress as CKHA moves forward with redevelopment plans.
“I call it our ‘seeing is believing tour,'” she said. “For anyone who has been in there lately, you’ve seen some major investments and some changes.”
The current redevelopment plans for the Wallaceburg hospital site focus on new medical beds, a diagnostic imaging department, and a laboratory, as well as a newly constructed building for the emergency department. The current emergency department at the Wallaceburg hospital would be converted into additional space for ambulatory care services.
A new $8.1 million power plant was also completed in September 2022 as part of the first phase of the redevelopment project.
The first day of deliberations for the Chatham-Kent municipal budget is scheduled for Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Civic Centre.