Where Should a New Hospital Go?
There is a lot of important discussion happening in our region about a location for a new acute care hospital. Before a decision is made, make sure you have your say.
Visit www.windsorhospitals.ca to vote on what criteria you think matters most when choosing a location.
If you have questions, just ask. Tomorrow the Co-Chairs of the Programs and Services Steering Committee will join Lynn Martin at 9 am on AM800 to take your calls.
Windsor Regional Hospital 
I am looking forward to a positive and productive public discussion tonight. Below are my thoughts that I hope to bring forward.
Healthcare professionals today are acknowledging the critical connection between good urban planning practices and a healthy active lifestyle. Building isolated campus style healthcare facilities that segregate themselves from their host cities and/or are distant from their urban centres contribute to sedentary, automobile dependant lifestyles. It has been recognized by the Centres for Disease Control and countless other medical organizations across North America that such development patterns, commonly referred to as “suburban sprawl” create an unhealthy environment, and in turn unhealthy residents.
It is because we have a responsibility to build healthy, sustainable, vibrant communities that we must select the site for this new hospital very carefully. Selecting a site distant from the greatest concentration of our region’s population, or developing the new facility in an automobile centric fashion will only contribute to the exodus of our urban centre and the perpetuation of a development pattern that is at its heart, unhealthy.
– The Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus is a quickly growing institution that has developed a strategy that works with neighbouring communities and the adjacent downtown core to better integrate itself into the city and become what is termed a “health district” opposed to the traditional fortress type campus. This work has become integral to the revitalization of downtown Buffalo and has been suggested to be the most important piece of the city’s revitalization plan, as it attracts businesses and residents to locate in the city centre.
– Vancouver BC will be closing the 120 year old St Paul Hospital downtown Vancouver and locating a new facility 3km away on a compact 15 acre site with close proximity to dense neighbourhoods and multiple transit lines. This facility is planned to be the largest hospital in the province and although it will remain close to downtown there is significant public concern which includes that of the mayor of Vancouver and local MPs about the closing of their downtown acute-care services. Despite the debate occurring, this project along with the new super-hospital being built in Montreal on 30 acres, it is clear that we can build compact and we can take measures to find sites close to our urban centres, even in the densest of cities.
– St Joseph’s hospital in Hamilton Ont. serves as inspiration that we can develop compactly and maintain our healthcare facilities in the heart of our community. Instead of building a new hospital outside of the city centre, a new 10 storey tower was constructed maintaining St. Joseph’s 600 bed facility in the heart of Hamilton. Similarly this institution reconstructed their regional mental health facility in place on its original downtown adjacent site. Although re-development is not appropriate for all communities, this example shows that what can be done on compact sites within the context of our urban centres.
I ask to take the aforementioned examples into careful consideration when selecting the new site for this hospital, and IF no appropriate sites were submitted as a result of the request for proposals, then I ask we do not settle and seek alternate methods to locate this new facility in the right location. We only have one chance to get this right!
Great to have you there last night. Thanks again for adding your voice to the discussion.
I think it should be put out by Windsor Airport.The hospital should be place south of Hwy 42 North an north of 46, between the 8th and the 10th, Lauzon Pkwy will be heading to the 401 with a new off ramp. that ease access to all. and I think where ever you put it someone got to travel to get there.
Hi Anthony,
Thanks for adding your voice to this important discussion. The Site Selection Subcommittee has a large task ahead. Once land owners have had the opportunity to submit their land for consideration, the subcommittee – with the help of consultants – will consider a number of factors including the site conditions.
As you mention, the goal in all of this that we have a hospital that will serve the community well into the future. We are confident that the Steering Committee has put a solid process into place and this will result in the best possible site selection for generations to come.
For more on the site selection process, please visit:
http://www.wrh.on.ca/Site_Published/AcuteCare/RichText.aspx?Body.QueryId.Id=58843&LeftNav.QueryId.Categories=774
The hospital should be place south of Hwy42 and just east or west of of Concession Rd 10. From an infrastructure standpoint you create an off ramp from the 401 East and West to a 4 lane Concession Rd 10. Continue with widening Lauzon Pkwy South to 4 lanes from EC Row Expwy and 4 lane county Rd 42 from Manning to Walker.
From personal experience I think the airport is a poor selection. Understand today’s medicine is very minimally invasive driven and therefore this means surgery is performed through small incissions and using either a robot or fine instruments that the surgeon is manipulating by watching a TV Monitor. This being said the floor of the operating room cannot VIBRATE AT ALL. Site selection needs to have alot of consideration. I hope this information and other people’s experience in other hospitals will place the Mega Hospital in the most advantages site for today and expansion in the next 100 years.
Will the list of sites being evaluated be released to the public? Will there be a comparative number of urban sites reviewed in contrast to suburban and rural locations?
Hi Shane,
Once the Site Selection Subcommittee gets the final list of weighted criteria from the Program and Services Steering Committee, the Site Selection Subcommittee will put out a “Request for Proposals”. Land owners, or representatives of landowners, who feel their property meets all or some of the criteria that will be used for site selection, will be invited to submit their property for consideration.
Will the list of sites being evaluated be released to the public?
Whether or not property owners want to make it known that they have submitted property for consideration will be up to each individual owner.
Will there be a comparative number of urban sites reviewed in contrast to suburban and rural locations?
That depends on which properties are submitted by property owners for consideration.
I urge you to please visit the website listed below and to distribute this to the site selection committee. This is an article that helps to explain why its vitally important to locate this facility in the urban centre of Windsor and why, should no land owners come forward in the RFP process with a centrally located site within the heart of our city, that measures should be taken to analyse other options of acquiring land that may not be possible with the RFP process.
Thank you.
http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2014/11/universities-and-hospitals-are-the-new-anchor-institutions-for-cities/382110/
I also believe that the new hospital should be built by the airport. Most important to me is that the City needs to continue to rejuvenate itself and this new hospital should be viewed as a major employer for the City and the County. We should have services that rival London Health Science Centre and make sure that we have all the services our citizens require, so there is no need to travel to Detroit or London for our Health care.
I think it should be put out by Windsor Airport. First, if it goes out any further, how is a person going to get out there if they don’t drive? Secondly, the further out, the more it’ll cost to get a bus system out there. Thirdly, just 3 years ago, I had surgery out at L.U.H. and noticed that their helicopters come in way too close to the entrance. Scarey!