For Progressive Conservative candidate Jim Wilson there’s nothing more important than health care.
“If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything,” he said while standing on the grass in front of the Collingwood General and Marine Hospital for a campaign stop. “I can’t think of a more important job for government.”
Wilson was at the hospital to reiterate his campaign focus: building a new hospital in Collingwood and Alliston.
“I don’t want to quit politics until I get this done,” he said.
Wilson has been working toward the two new hospitals for ten years, but he said things have really turned a corner in the last three years as both hospitals and their boards of directors are very supportive of a new build.
“It really is our turn,” said Wilson, citing new hospital builds in Barrie, Owen Sound and recent builds or expansions in Newmarket, Orangeville and others in Ontario.
“There are investments being made all around us,” said Wilson.
Both hospital CEOs have told Wilson and the provincial government they have the $30 to $40 million committed already for the local portion of the build.
The hospitals are in planning stages now, but Wilson expects they could be built within six years.
Wilson said it’s “settled” in his mind that the new Collingwood hospital would be located on the Poplar Sideroad site, and would become a teaching hospital with other healthcare facilities on the same site.
Wilson brought some statistics with him to his event at the General and Marine.
“All 68 beds are full 100 per cent of the time. In 2017/2018 the hospital had 4,696 admissions, 462 babies, 4,536 surgical procedures, 33,964 emergency visits, 18,753 outpatient visits, 8,438 mental health clinic visits and 229 orthopaedic surgeries,” said Wilson.
There’s a 64 per cent growth in hospital admissions projected within the next 20 years.
