A Commentary by Doug Draper
Just as the Niagara Health System is gearing up to celebrate the grand opening this March of its new hospital complex in St. Catharines, Ontario’s west end, there is some sobering news about the cost of some of the infrastructure needed to accommodate all the additional traffic the hospital will generate to this dumbest of places where the new hospital could have gone.
The new hospital complex the Niagara Health System is opening on the outskirts of St. Catharines, Ontario. Photo by Doug Draper
Niagara’s regional government has learned earlier this January that the estimated cost of constructing a new interchange off Highway 406 to accommodate traffic to the hospital and other dumb growth, as opposed to “smart” growth, St. Catharines and the region has said yes to over the past in west St. Catharines, has ballooned to about $30 million.
Isn’t that nice. And who is going to pay for that?
Indeed, who is going to pay for all of the new infrastructure, including the millions already spent on widening Fourth Avenue and other roads running off Highway 406? Well the ordinary citizens of Niagara and Ontario will be paying out of their pockets, of course, for highway and other infrastructure that might not have been needed.
And all because the Niagara Health System, under the command of this God-awful hospital system’s former CEO Debbie Sevenpifer and Betty-Lou Souter and other lame brains that sat on her board decided, for reasons that may have to do with enriching the pockets of local land speculators and developers for all we know, decided to locate the only new hospital complex the province is likely to approve in Niagara for decades to come in a location that does not make any sense from a sustainable, smart planning point of view or from an access-to-hospital-care point of view for the greater Niagara region.
So here we are. And while there is no doubting that this new hospital complex which itself is expected to cost about a billion and a half dollars once the interest has been paid to the private partners, is first class, state-of –the-art and all of that stuff, and you can count on all the provincial and municipal signatories being there for the grip and grin on opening day, there will be little said on that occasion about the cost to the rest of us, including residents in the southern tier of Niagara and Niagara Falls who are seeing every more acute care services in their hospitals closed down and transferred to this one.
For what it is worth, let me also remind that Niagara regional council received a detailed report from its planning department more than five years ago, listing about 10 good reasons why a new hospital for Niagara should not be located at this west St. Catharines site. One of those reasons had to do with the necessity of building a new interchange off the Highway 406 to accommodate it, the cost of which was estimated around $5 million to $10 million at that time.
The estimated cost of the interchange alone ramped up to somewhere between $10 million and $20 million, and now here we are at an estimated $30 million estimate for an interchange that may not be up and running until the year 2016. Isn’t that great. Let traffic for the new hospital, for staff and those who need to visit there, pile up at the off ramp to Fourth Avenue along the 406 in the meantime. A small price to pay for picking a location for this hospital which I continue to suspect has more to do with land speculators making a bundle off this site and adjoining properties than it has to do with choosing the best site for health care.
I wonder what St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley and others that have enjoyed photo opportunities with Debbie Sevenpifer and this hospital project think? Perhaps they can tell us where the multi-millions of dollars are going to come from to pay for the infrastructure to accommodate this grand hospital complex in Bradley’s riding?
Someone might want to drill Bradley on his involvement in choosing this ridiculous and costly site for a new hospital complex for our region during the next election, which many believe will be called within the next four to six months.
By the way, for those who argue that it is a good idea to waive development charges for developers and pass off those cost of building or expanding new roads and other infrastructure to the rest of us citizens, already paying our fair share of property taxes here, the former regional council of Peter Partington waived all development fees for the NHS hospital complex in west St. Catharines.
That decision meant that the rest of us are left paying an additional $7 million in development charges for the decision Sevenpifer and company to locate this new hospital in a place that demanded far more in terms of infrastructure upgrades than it might have if another location further south along the Highway 406 corridor had been chosen.
When the choice of this site in west St. Catharines for a major health complex makes so little sense from an urban planning and an access to hospital care for Niagara point, of view, then it is difficult not to consider the possibility that other more nefarious reasons came in to play.
Indeed, it is hard not to consider the possibility that special development concerns are profiting off the choice of the west St. Catharines site for this hospital, including speculators on properties surrounding that site where the values of those properties have soared considerably and will be leased or sold to businesses related to the hospital operation.
Isn’t it interesting that there is a declining number of dollars to provide proper hospital services at sites that are reasonable for residents of our communities to access, but we can afford to blow tens-of-millions of dollars for roads and other infrastructure to accommodate a brand new mega hospital in a Liberal government riding in this province.
I always remain open to more tips as to who is profiting from anyone else on this issue. I’ll take them on the record, off the record or through whatever means that leads to smoking out the special interests here. This is a story in progress.
(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post. Please remember that we only post views by individuals who also share their first and last name.)
Niagara At Large 
“A story in progress”. Excellent! It is refreshing to know that you will continue to follow this when so many share an attitude that expresses a feeling of: everything is such a done deal that we are so defeated we need no longer question something we know is wrong and questionably ethical.
LikeLike
Doug it’s nice to see that you have a reasonable measure of the character of Ontario’s Liberals.
It’s just sad to witness the downfall and ruin of this once great and proud centrist party at the hands of a cabal of Machiavellian schemers.
LikeLike
Well said Doug
When they closed services in Port and Fort Erie we were told they would balance the budget by 2013,,,,not even close. They offloaded ambulance costs to the Region, was in the amount of 3 million extra, to transport to Welland and NF. How much will the region {we the taxpayers} pay for the additional service when Maternity and Peds head north. Its a well kept figure so far but since it isnt the NHS budget they dont give a rats ass.
The seniors are hard pressed now to keep up with expenses ,,,,just wait till fund raising is tried to raise the 60 to 80 million community portion for a
remotely possible new Hospital. It will be difficult to get blood out of the rocks or beaches of the Southern Tier,,,,,we already are tapped out by St Catharines.
LikeLike
God bless you Doug for your relentless moral compass. You and a handful of others knew from the start this new hospital was going to be the main regional hospital (or super hospital) right from the start and the location selected was just plain wrong to serve all of Niagara. Remember how they (the NHS) used to insist it was basically a hospital for St. Catharines, Niagara on the Lake and Thorold and we were scaremongerers to suggest anything else.
It would be very interesting to follow the money as you suggest. I can tell you one thing for sure the site selected in west St. Catharines was not a medical decision. Politics….money….sound like the two most likely culprits. Earlier on, when I was squwaking and squwaking about the NHS had selected the wrong location, they eventually invited me down to their headquarters to discuss it. Debbie Sevenpifer and Gloria Payne insisted they had done a thorough feasability study and selected the best location. One of the main reasons was it was fully serviced and would not require much in additional costs. I asked them to do a cost/benefit analysis on locations in and around hywys 20 and 406, which they never did.
Now they need an additional $30 million for infrastructure, plus what they have already spent and they want someone else to pick up the tab.
I say let the people that approved this major mistake pay for it.
LikeLike
It is ironic that had Bradley not been so stubborn in preventing the hospital from being built in its rightful location near Brock, so as not to share the political credit with Kormos, it would have still ended up in his St Catharines political riding. If I understand Doug Herod’s comments in the Standard last week, due to redistricting, the hospital being just West of 1st Ave, is now in Niagara West Glanbrook – Tim Hudak’s riding. Such are the wages of partisanship.
LikeLike
Well Pat, good luck on getting the responsible parties to pay for their stupidity. Even idiots like Sevenfigures just move on to more lucrative positions. It seems that massive failures in previous jobs are the prerequisites for moving up the business ladder. We all bloody well knew that the local hospitals would close in spite of the CEO’s lying through their teeth. We all knew they didn’t give a flying f**** about the burden on the taxpayers or the availability of services to outlying regions. I could comprehend a disparity in availability of services if we were in Nunavut but we are talking populous areas here, not remote frontiers.
We all knew, or at least suspected, that people like Kitts and Smith were just highly paid window dressing with their agendas already cast in marble by those higher up. Did it matter that thousands of people have protested over the last five years? Did it matter that there were deadly infectious outbreaks due to cutbacks in cleaning staff? Did it matter that the expenses of ambulance transfers far outpaced the supposed savings? Did it matter that millions were wasted on superfluous dispersal of our funds?
Does it matter that people will die before reaching the needed facilities? Does it matter that front line staff such as nurses will be trimmed back to cover costs, producing for them an increase in their already unmanageable workload resulting in poorer care? Does it matter that the closing of outlying facilities in spite of the opening of the new Taj Mahospital will actually reduce the number of beds in an area where beds are even now at a premium and people are sent home before they are well, often in the care of elderly loved ones incapable of caring for them, with resultant readmissions and their incumbent costs and poorer outcomes? The ratio of beds per patient in Ontario at present is one of, if not the lowest in the country!!! Does it matter that previously fully operational hospitals,
I might add that those hospitals which perpetually balanced their budgets unlike St. Catharines, will become nursing homes and palliative care centres where people will be sent to spend their last days in facilities not easily accessible to their loved ones who will often be older folks unable to commute easily? Does it matter that the new hospital does not seem to be attracting a flood of qualified doctors eager to practice in the area? In essence, does it matter that health care is now a business meant to produce a profit?
People’s health is not commodity up for sale to the highest bidder like it is in the US but, BEWARE, that is the next step. Privatization and dual levels of care according to ability to pay. People may be apathetic for now but wait until they need care and the lack of its availability bites THEM in the ass! They will be singing a new tune entirely. This new hospital should have been a replacement for St. Catharines only due to its location.
I truly doubt I will live to see a Southern tier hospital. I’m still waiting for twining of the Peace Bridge! It seems the value of one’s life is now determined by where you live. This whole hospital fiasco was brought about by politics, intractability, and self agrandizement. We are beneath the notice of the creeps who foisted this travesty upon us.
LikeLike
Thanks Doug, right on all accounts. I remember watching a news program years ago, either W5 of Fifth estate where they discussed how a city in Canada made the same bizarre decision to build their new public hospital outside of town. It ended up being a nightmare and the news program went through the city’s decision making process documenting how it happened.
Granted it was a story about an isolated incident, but remembering it gave me doubts about this thing from the beginning. I understand the questions about land values in the area, but I think it was something simpler. That location is the only place you could build a Region-wide hospital and still convince the people in St. Catharines that it was their hospital.
When it was first proposed, I never heard anything about a $1.5 billion hospital complex. I just remember it being a $300 million replacement for the St. Catharines General. It’s a strange story
LikeLike
Does anyone really expect anything different from those people responsible for these boondoggles?
I am hopeful, Doug, you are successful in getting to the bottom of this and exposing those who have profited monetarily or otherwise. I will be following your efforts closely. Good work!
LikeLike
The previous CEO of the OHA critized the peoples of the Southern Tier of the Niagara Region for their objections upon losing their hospitals caused by the God Awful cost of the Taj Mahal being built in St Catharines. Then the OHA, under his direction was in direct consultation with the Kalieda Hospital Group in Buffalo and soon afterwards a multitude of Huge Billboard size Kalieda signs grace our landscape. If I am not wrong I remember an article in a locxal rag that stated a deal was struck where a citizen of Southern Ontario, with their Doctors basic OK could be treated in a Buffalo Kalieda Hospital at the same cost as an Ontario Hospital.
It seemed this man was an advocate of two tier Health Care yet was appointed to the CEO position and I wonder why?? Was it Privatization????
LikeLike
A powerful piece, Doug, clearly fuelled by your years of frustration about this situation. Like Patricia, I am delighted that you have not given up on this story, despite everything…because, my dear friend, you are the one to get to the bottom of this. You have covered the issues surrounding the new hospital since the beginning, back to and including the amalgamation into the NHS. Not only have you worked as a journalist in this region for decades, but you grew up here. Niagara is your home. You are deeply familiar with the history, the politics, and the people of Niagara.
A serious probe requires the skills of an experienced journalist. While other reporters have written previously about the St. Catharines hospital and the conflicts surrounding the choice of the site, local media can no longer afford to do investigative journalism. Nor are the larger and better-funded Toronto-based media outlets, such as the Toronto Star or the CBC, likely to consider putting increasingly scarce resources towards an investigation of an issue that probably has little currency outside of Niagara.
So it comes back to you – and to those of us who still care passionately about the factors that informed the decisions on the future of Niagara’s hospital services. Are we willing and able to support you? If so, will you take this on, on behalf of all of us?
LikeLike
It’s very simple, money talks. They live in their own world. You know who runs the region, it’s the developers and the taxpayers fill their wallets. John Rozic
LikeLike