South Bruce Peninsula council has given Town staff the green light to look into the possibility of using the other half of the new town hall building for a family health team.
Council approved a staff recommendation Tuesday to further negotiations with the South Bruce Peninsula Family Health Organization to lease roughly 8,000 sq ft of space at the new Town Hall building overlooking Wiarton’s Bluewater Park.
Staff can now get costing associated with construction work to accommodate a proposed for a South Bruce Peninsula Family Health Team.
They will report back to council at a later date with a construction budget and a draft lease agreement for council’s consideration.
Recently, the South Bruce Peninsula Family Health Organization, and before that, the Sauble and Wiarton MD Quest physician recruitment group made delegations to Council expressing interest in leasing the remaining vacant space at the new Town Hall location.
The Family Health Organization said it could help them increase their capacity for 14 more allied health professionals and enable team based care with the use of nurse practitioners, physiotherapists, dieticians, hearing specialists, social workers, and others. It would create more room to roster the 2,500 unattached residents and potentially reduced emergency department visits at the hospital.
That delegation also emphasized the view that a facility big and modern enough to support a family health team model would be a key physician and allied health professional recruitment tool.
They also highlighted long-term efficiencies like shared administration.
Staff say in their report, the preliminary estimated cost to renovate the space for a healthcare facility is about $2 million. This equates to a mortgage of around $135,000 annually at today’s current rates (5 year term). They say operational costs will be in the neighbourhood of $70,000 annually (heat, hydro, snow removal, insurance, cleaning). The total cost to build, operate and maintain the facility is estimated at $205,000 annually.
According to Town staff, the Family Health Organization has stated that they have applied for funding in the amount of $100,000 to assist with a portion of the capital costs of the proposed project. Town staff say they will also continue to look for grants and funding assistance to offset capital costs.
The report estimates the family health organization could immediately fund about $130,000 of the $205,000 annual lease requirement.
Staff say, there are a number of ideas for coming up with the remaining $75,000 funds required annually (gap funding). They could include asking the neighbouring Township of Georgian Bluffs for a contribution as it’s estimated about 25 per cent of the family health team’s patients live in Georgian Bluffs. Other options include using some of their allocated physician recruitment or incentive funding, increasing taxes by 0.5 per cent, and eventually generating lease revenue from allied healthcare professionals in the facility like physiotherapists or dieticians.
Back in February, Sauble and Wiarton MD Quest physician recruitment group representative Cory Dobbin told council, the doctor’s offices in Wiarton could use renovation, as younger physicians may feel they layout is outdated. He says they were built in 1994 and are made up of four isolated offices– something new doctors, and doctors from large urban centres are not used to. He said new doctors favour a more open, connected family health team set up.