Ed Cornies, retired urban and regional planner with more than 40 years of experience, who also served as Director of Planning for the County of Essex during the 1980s and early ’90s. Now living in Kingsville.
I was dismayed by Chris Vanderdoelen's January 13 column -- Hospital Fight a Pointless Waste. Such negativity should be rewarded with a career change.
The expressed concerns over the proposed location of the proposed new mega hospital should be considered as only part of a larger public discussion that needs to take place about the demand for and location of future health care facilities. There are several major questions that need to be addressed.
Where are the studies that examine the costs and pros and cons of modernizing/expanding the two existing hospitals rather than building a new mega hospital?
Where is the detailed justification for a 60 acre site for a new hospital when most new hospitals in large urban areas in Canada and the U.S. typically only require 10 to 20 acres?
Why didn't the site selection criteria include a regard for the importance of maintaining the viability of the City's central core as well as the cost of providing the necessary supporting infrastructure for a more remote site?
And then there's the fearmongering! Past and present elected officials have warned that Provincial funding will be lost if opposition to the new hospital as proposed by a group of unelected health bureaucrats continues. I prefer to think that the government of Kathleen Wynne has the integrity to make funding decisions in a more objective and less spiteful manner. Let's consider the issues in their entirety. This may take a little longer but the end result will be better for it and the general public will be more understanding and supportive of the final proposal. As for the money -- our turn will undoubtedly eventually come.
The expressed concerns over the proposed location of the proposed new mega hospital should be considered as only part of a larger public discussion that needs to take place about the demand for and location of future health care facilities. There are several major questions that need to be addressed.
Where are the studies that examine the costs and pros and cons of modernizing/expanding the two existing hospitals rather than building a new mega hospital?
Where is the detailed justification for a 60 acre site for a new hospital when most new hospitals in large urban areas in Canada and the U.S. typically only require 10 to 20 acres?
Why didn't the site selection criteria include a regard for the importance of maintaining the viability of the City's central core as well as the cost of providing the necessary supporting infrastructure for a more remote site?
And then there's the fearmongering! Past and present elected officials have warned that Provincial funding will be lost if opposition to the new hospital as proposed by a group of unelected health bureaucrats continues. I prefer to think that the government of Kathleen Wynne has the integrity to make funding decisions in a more objective and less spiteful manner. Let's consider the issues in their entirety. This may take a little longer but the end result will be better for it and the general public will be more understanding and supportive of the final proposal. As for the money -- our turn will undoubtedly eventually come.
See also: Mega-hospital Site a Poor Choice, published in the Windsor Star on January 5, 2016
