A group of doctors is calling out what they see as misinformation about the progress toward a new hospital for Collingwood and encouraging voters to be informed on the matter.
The doctors suggest the hospital’s redevelopment should not be a focal point for this municipal election.
“We perceive that misinformation is circulating in the community in regards to the progress of the redevelopment of the Collingwood General and Marine Hospital (CGMH),” reads a statement signed by 18 doctors who live and practice in Collingwood. “In our opinion, the town has continued to support a new hospital for Collingwood and the South Georgian Bay region throughout the redevelopment process and progress has not been delayed by council’s actions.”
The doctors’ statement further encourages voters to be informed and suggests the focus for the municipal election should be on issues such as governance, spending of tax dollars, development of town infrastructure, and appropriate housing.
In fact, the hospital redevelopment has been a polarizing issue for the mayoral candidates.
John Trude, on his campaign website, claims the current council “decided to obstruct” the hospital and spent thousands of dollars “needlessly” on sole-sourced consultants and lawyers.
Brian Saunderson, on his campaign website, said Trude was using the hospital redevelopment as a “wedge issue” for his own political purposes and suggested sticking to the facts, adding the town and hospital are in “complete alignment.”
Michael Blair said he wholeheartedly supports the new hospital program and agrees with the doctor’s statement.
The contention surrounding the hospital redevelopment project stems back to nearly the beginning of the process in 2016. The biggest and most heated debate has been the location of the new hospital.
A new hospital must be approved and funded by the Ontario government. There’s a five-phase process for the application. Site selection occurs around phase three of the application. The CGMH application is currently in Phase 1. They have submitted the required documents to the province and await approval of the first phase in order to move on in the process.
According to minutes and council agendas archived on the town website, council passed a motion on June 9, 2016, to support the expansion of the CGMH on its existing site.
Hospital representatives, including Thom Paterson, the CGMH board chair, and David Finbow, the chair of the Facilities Planning Committee of the board of trustees, appeared before council on August 29, 2016.
According to the minutes from the meeting, Paterson “acknowledged Collingwood council and staff for ongoing commitment and confirmed the hospital board received the recommended site location (from June.” The minutes further state Paterson said no decision has been made on a location yet.
Finbow is recorded in the minutes confirming Poplar Sideroad as the “preferred site” for the hospital’s redevelopment.
Following this meeting, citizens' groups began to come forward to council, including one called Hospital 4 Collingwood and another called Citizens for Collingwood General and Marine Hospital Redevelopment.
Those groups made deputations to council, explaining they preferred the new hospital on the existing hospital location and expressed concern with the hospital process to date, suggesting the process should have been more transparent on the part of the hospital board and committee.
Then-hospital CEO Guy Chartrand countered the citizens' concerns, saying the hospital was involving the public via meetings and other means of online engagement and communication.
At the August 29 meeting, according to the minutes, council passed a motion of support for the hospital’s application to the province, requested copies of all studies connected to the redevelopment application, and voted to conduct a peer review of the material prior to responding to the committee’s suggestion of Poplar Sideroad as the preferred location.
On Sept. 12, 2016, council unanimously voted in favour of supporting the hospital trustees’ decision to submit the Stage 1A Master Program and 1B Master plan to the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, which was approximately two weeks before the Sept. 30 deadline.
The hospital did submit the Phase 1 application in time for the deadline.
On Sept. 21, town council approved then CAO John Brown’s request to hire Deloitte as the consultant to undertake a peer review of the hospital’s decision-making process. The motion passed 5-4. The cost was $30,000, according to the minutes. The town’s purchasing policy at the time allowed staff to forego a request for proposal/bidding (RFP) process for purchases of $25,000 or less. Brown received council’s permission to hire Deloitte without an RFP process.
The report by Deloitte, called the Due Diligence Report, was presented to council on Dec. 12, 2016, by Gloria Kain, a senior advisor with Deloitte.
The report stated the site selection process completed by the CGMH for the hospital redevelopment project included an appropriate level of analysis for the early stage of the project to provide three viable options. The report suggested there were “inconsistencies and ambiguity” around the technical evaluation, cost estimates, and the assessment of municipal alignment used to select a preferred option and site location.
Key recommendations in that report called for greater transparency around the scoring process, increased transparency around the ministry cost-sharing allocations, and alignment of the viable development options with existing municipal policies.
The hospital posted a response to the Due Diligence Report on its website. The response states it comes from the CGMH, but no further detail is included about the identity of the author.
The hospital states it found the Deloitte report, overall, “supportive and positive.”
However, the response further states there was some language that was “problematic for CGMH.”
“It is important to recognize that CGMH’s Stage 1 Submission, if supported by the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care, will lead to subsequent studies (Stage 2 & 3) to further scope, refine and develop the site viability, costing, revenue sources and address municipal planning matters,” states the hospital’s response. “The Stage 1 Report is effectively a Business Case of Redevelopment and is not a complete planning submission.”
Since the Phase 1 application has been submitted, the hospital hired a new CEO, Norah Holder. The town has also hired a new CAO, Fareed Amin.
According to the hospital website portal dedicated to the redevelopment process, a new hospital is at least eight to 10 years away.
In fact, the hospital has not yet received approval from the province of its Phase 1 submission, submitted Sept. 30, 2016.
“While CGMH did identify a preferred redevelopment solution, it is important to remember that it’s ultimately up to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to make a final determination, as to whether the redevelopment of CGMH will proceed and what form, including location, it will take,” states a notice on the hospital website.
A statement also posted on the site states the hospital has received a number of inquiries related to the hospital redevelopment and the municipal election.
“This hospital is an apolitical body and does not become involved in any election,” states the news release.
On July 23, 2018, Collingwood council passed a motion with unanimous support, asking for a ministerial order from the province to establish the property on Poplar Sideroad adjacent to the existing Georgian College campus (and the preferred location identified by the hospital) as the future home of a new Collingwood Hospital.
Ian Chadwick, candidate for deputy mayor, said the motion looked like a “tacky election manoeuvre,” and claims the prior actions of council set the redevelopment process back “by at least three years, if not 10.”
He said council wasted taxpayers money “putting up roadblocks,” referring to money spent on the Deloitte peer review and subsequent reports by Aird and Berlis providing opinions on the town’s actions in the hospital redevelopment matter.
The Aird and Berlis reports can be found here and here.
Mayoral candidate John Trude has also said the town delayed the process.
“I fully and unquestionably support the hospital, and its thorough, provincially-mandated and derived planning process,” said Trude on his website. “By allowing town staff to dictate a confrontational process, [current council] created negative relations with the hospital community that we must now make significant strides to repair.”
Current Deputy Mayor and mayoral candidate Brian Saunderson does not agree.
“Whether or not people feel this council has in any way delayed the hospital, which I don’t believe is the case. It’s a decision and a dialogue between the hospital and the province and the province will make all the decisions about the five phases,” said Saunderson. “The hospital is a provincial issue, it’s a provincial decision.”
Simcoe-Grey MPP Jim Wilson’s office did not respond for comment. However, previously Wilson has declared his full support of the Poplar Sideroad location for the future hospital and said a new hospital in Collingwood and Alliston is his top priority for the riding.
The statement by the group of local doctors states a hospital redevelopment is a marathon, not a sprint.
“As physicians, we feel confident that the redevelopment process will continue to progress due to the preparation and efforts of the CGMH and its board members, the Town of Collingwood, The Blue Mountains, Wasaga Beach, and Clearview Township, along with Grey County, Simcoe County, and the Honourable Jim Wilson MPP.”
