One last hospital post (I promise), before you go and vote:

I’m glad to see that all the hospital talk has now died down. In spite of Chadwick and Trudes efforts to make it an election wedge issue, similar to the patios in 2010. This time around, with the predominance of social media, it’s a lot harder to  proliferate misinformation in the public domain. There are still a few misinformed people out there, but not nearly as many as there seemed to be when the election cycle started.

The thing that many people have failed to grasp, is the fact that the people of Collingwood can demand that the hospital be a new build on a green field site on Poplar Side Rd all they want, but the Ontario Ministry of Health has the final say. That option in todays dollars will probably be somewhere in the region of $450M. By the time the bulldozers and excavators show up, that number will probably be closer half a billion dollars.

Apparently, the nuts and bolts decisions about hospitals like locations and whether its a new build or a phased renovation/refurbishment are usually made around the Stage 3 or Stage 4 of the process and they are made by the provincial Ministry of Health. The town populace and council can only really  state its preference.

So on that basis I’m going to throw a very real scenario at you: 

It’s now 2024 Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservative government were re-elected to its second term as Ontario’s government two years previously. His efforts to wrestle down the deficit have been lacklustre at best, so the provincial purse strings are still wound up extremely tight. The process to bring a new hospital to Collingwood has been moving along through its various stages. It is now getting to the end of stage 3, location is very much on the table. 

Alliston, also in Simcoe County, has a similar population to Collingwood. They had agreed much earlier in the process to build a new wing and to engage in a complete renovation/refurbishment at existing Stevenson Memorial Hospital site. The funding required for this is to be phased in three $80M increments, they are now at Stage 5 of the process, meaning plans are being drawn up and the tenders will be going out the following year. 

Collingwood on the other hand has been stuck on a new green field site on Poplar Side Rd. Which requires a significant investment from Simcoe County, rezoning of the land by the provincial Ministry of Municipal affairs.  Infrastructure spending in the millions by the Town of Collingwood. The process has been delayed by trying to get agreements from three differant levels of government required to make a brand new improperly zoned  green field site work.

It’s at this point the Ministry steps in and says that funding in the half billion dollar range is not on the cards for Collingwood, in the the near or distant future, It is their assertion that the best way to proceed is in the Alliston model. A phased expansion of the existing Hume St hospital, where infrastructure and zoning is already in place. No County roads need to be widened and no 12″ water and 24″ sewer mains will need to be ran 1.8km to the east side of town.

I wonder at that point what David Finbow,  Tom Vincent, Guy Chartrand, Ian Chadwick will have to say when or if this happens? I also wonder who Bud Christensen will be sending his nasty threatening emails  to in that scenario?

It has amazed me from the  start of this hospital debate, why supposedly intelligent people, who have been engaged in the hospital development process, have not once given the above scenario any real credence or thought.