By Jennifer Lew
Saint-Vincent Hospital, the only long-term, chronic-care hospital in Ottawa-Carleton, has drawn up plans to expand and renovate its facilities, though it doesn’t have funding yet.
“We have no choice, we have to go ahead with renovations,” says Michel Bilodeau, head of the Sisters of Charity of Ottawa, the health service that runs the hospital.
“We have to raise the standard of living” at Saint-Vincent, says Bilodeau.
Many of the rooms are without bathrooms and in some cases, furniture has to be moved so patients in wheelchairs can get around.
Patients at Saint-Vincent suffer from complex health problems like Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease, or have had debilitating strokes. Most residents are elderly and live at the Cambridge Street hospital year-round, requiring ongoing medical care.
Randy Romain, 42, has lived at Saint-Vincent for about seven years and says he looks forward to the hospital upgrades.
“It’s well needed. The rooms are pretty confined and the staff don’t have much space to move,” says Romain, president of the residents’ council.
Although the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care approved the hospital’s $42.6 million expansion and agreed in June to provide 70 per cent of the funding, the hospital’s cost consultants now estimate the care facility needs $48 million — an increase of $5.4 million — to complete the project.
The hospital has to ask the ministry to approve the new figure and still cover 70 per cent of the funding.
But even if the province approves the extra funding, the health service has to come up with $16 million.
Geoff Bell, a spokesman for the ministry, wouldn’t say whether or not the hospital will receive more funding. He says it’s standard practice for the province to provide 70 per cent of funding and ask hospitals to make up the rest.
The hospital’s foundation has around $4 million — money saved when “hospitals still had surpluses and before the ministry froze capital projects in 1988,” explains Bilodeau.
The Sisters of Charity plans to ask the new City of Ottawa to provide funding.
But Bilodeau says the health service will have to wait until after the municipal elections as candidates are hesitant to make any promises.
If the city doesn’t provide funding, the health service will have to rely on fund-raising and private donations.
But Bilodeau says that will be hard because the Sisters of Charity of Ottawa isn’t as well known as the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario or the University of Ottawa Health Institute.
“We don’t attract the high-tech organizations the way university hospitals that use technology might,” he says. “Elderly people don’t use computers and they are not future clients.”
The last resort is to borrow money. But Bilodeau says in that case the hospital might have to reduce services to pay off loans.
Despite the concerns, there are plans to build a new wing, upgrade residents’ rooms, add two atriums to provide more leisure space, put in new elevators and install air conditioning in areas that aren’t yet equipped.
Residents have already moved into two model rooms in the hospital.
The new rooms are almost double the size of current rooms, have more storage space, are more private and have oxygen and medical gases piped in through the walls to replace clumsy equipment.
Construction officially begins this spring and is expected to last three years.