‘Healthcare hub’ for Wallaceburg described

Earlier this month, details about a healthcare hub for Wallaceburg have been announced as part of an “interlocked approach” supported by four local healthcare organizations.

The Chatham-Kent Community Health Centres, Canadian Mental Health Association Lambton Kent, Public General Hospital Society of Chatham and St. Joseph’s Health Services Association of Chatham Inc., announced their plan to secure capital investments for patients/clients across Chatham-Kent during a press conference earlier on May 5.

The Chatham-Kent Health System Capital Plan: One Plan, estimated to cost up to $29 million, has three components:

– Mental health and addictions integration

– Community hub in Wallaceburg

– Emergency Services / Chatham hospital restructuring

Wallaceburg hub details

Sherri Saunders, executive director at the Chatham-Kent Community Health Centres said the hub in Wallaceburg is grounded in a community health-centric approach with the Community Health Centres being established as the leading agency,” Saunders said during the May 5 meeting.

“We have been diligently working on how to transfer the delivery of healthcare in order to provide better access to service, to preserve the services that we need, to grow and expand the services and mitigate the gaps that we may have.”

Saunders added: “To sustain the level of quality for all the residents of Chatham-Kent, Walpole Island and surrounding communities – system change is required. So the goals associated with a community hub are built on the foundational principles of improved access to the right care, at the right time, by the right provider, in the right place in the community.”

Saunders said collaboration is key as they bring teams together “to meet the needs of what that individual and family requires.

“Together, more is better. A community hub is conveniently located in a space that is recognized and valued in the local community as a gathering place for people and an access point for a wide range of community programs and services,” she said.

Saunders added there are several advantages associated with the community hubs.

“It’s convenient, it’s a one stop shopping model where there is less burden of having to go to various institutions and organizations for the care that is required from a single point of access,” she said.

“It leads to efficiencies around service delivery where we can blend our resources and mitigate any gaps in services. At the end of the day service is coordinated in a better way so that we get to the right door the first time.”

Need a strong business case

Sarah Padfield, chief operating officer for the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, said during the meeting that every project that gets submitted through the capital planning process needs to have a business case.

“There are lots of communities with lots of needs right across this province,” she said.

“That business case has to stand on its merits of sustainability, best serve health care of not just today, but in the future. It looks at sustainability long term both from a human resources, financial resources and infrastructure resources in terms of its investments.”

Padfield said they have gotten feedback along the way from the LHIN and from the Ministry.

“One of the things that the LHIN has supported through this process has been the ongoing development of integration and of partnerships between our organizations for the last number of years,” she said.

“Lambton-Kent have developed one of the premier interlocking strategies for management of mental health and addiction services in the province and in fact has been recognized both provincially and nationally for the work that we have done to create what we believe is a more seamless system of healthcare for our community.”

Padfield said many assessments have been done about the physical location of the Sydenham Campus.

“It is at its end of life and it needs replacement,” she said.

“A new policy is being introduced and a new framework for these kind of integrated projects, specifically led by community organizations. A new thinking, a new pot of money is going to become available for community driven organizations to build these kinds of infrastructures in communities and think about delivering health care differently.”

Padfield said they have worked with Walpole Island along the way to include them into the plan.

“The Community Health Centres developed a strategy very collaboratively with Walpole Island First Nations with culturally safe care delivery in their model,” she said.

Padfield added the role of the hospital is getting smaller.

“What a hospital does is becoming more and more specialized,” she said.

“That speaks to needing different kinds of facilities, different kinds of supports, not just in hospital but certainly in the community.”

Padfield said any healthcare project over $10 million, requires Cabinet approval.

“Projects under $10 million have more access to grants and a little more flexibly,| she said.

“We don’t know if the Ministry is going to look at this as one big project. We hope not, that is why we have subdivided them but we think they are reasonable in terms being able to attract approvals and investments.”

Have an emergency? Call 911

Willi Kirenko, vice president and chief nursing executive at CKHA, said she is encouraging people who are in an emergency situation, to call 911.

“The information that we have seen up to date, and not just for this community but all our communities, people with true emergencies for some reason are reluctant to call for an ambulance,” she said.

“We are not sure why that is so, it just seems to be so. I would strongly suggest to each one of you here that is you really feel that you have a life threatening or critical emergency of some sort. A stroke, heart attack, a serious injury at your home that rather than risking a car ride anywhere, that you call 911.”

Kirenko said the intention is to add EMS to the proposed Wallaceburg community hub.

“They would be dispatched to your home or wherever you call 911 from to get you and then they will make a decision of where you are best served and bring you to the site where they think you need care,” she said.

“If it is not a critical emergency like an urgent care kind of thing… an injured ankle, you think it may be broken, a laceration or a cut that needs to be sutured, I think those types of patients should come to the Emergency Access Centre. You will receive the care that you need and the urgent care that you need, right there at that centre.”

Padfield added having more paramedics, doesn’t necessarily mean more ambulances.

“Part of the model would be actually having an EMS provider in the centre,” she said.

“So they wouldn’t be in an ambulance. They would be working side by side with an RN as the provider. We have been having conversations with EMS Chatham-Kent around capacity and if this model were to come together. What would you look at. I think they are looking at how the capacity of EMS is currently being used and acknowledging that that is going to have to look different.”

Padfield said they are having dialogue with Walpole Island to handle EMS coverage as well.

“We had a very good dialogue with Walpole Island on the plan and we have heard from them and their concerns about EMS and have committed to supported them and working with them on looking at models for on Island EMS coverage,” she said.

How will the $29 million be funded?

“In the new model it’s different,” Padfield said, when asked how much of the tab the community would have to pick up.

“Of the hospital programs, of the $10 to $15 million, the hospital would be responsible for about 25%. So that would mean own funds coming from hospital sources. So about $2.5 million. A hub model is different because some of these are very small agencies that don’t have fundraising capacity from the community. So at this point that is still to be determined. Our fundamental hope though would be that the majority of the project would be covered by the Ministry.

Padfield said there is a minimum of two years of planning ahead for this project to happen.

“It’s not going to happen overnight,” she said.

Here is our original story about their plan: Integrated healthcare plan announced

– Tami Schram Photo: From left, Sarah Padfield, chief operating officer for the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, Alan Stevenson, chief executive officer of the Canadian Mental Health Association, Lambton-Kent, Sherri Saunders, integrated executive director of the Chatham-Kent Community Health Centres, and Willi Kirenko, CKHA vice-president and chief nursing executive.