Re-elected South Bruce Peninsula Mayor Jay Kirkland says plans for the new town hall in Wiarton were a common topic when election campaign door knocking in the election which wrapped up this week.
He says getting the word out about how council plans to support doctors offices in the other half of the building was key, noting, “Once people realized that we’re putting the medical and the doctors with us in that building, it kind of changed their minds and relieved that it wasn’t going to be total tax dollars spent on this building.”
He added, “That was a lot of discussion with people and door knocking and making sure that they understood where we’re going with that because it is one of the biggest things South Bruce Peninsula’s ever done.
“We haven’t formally signed our agreements with each doctor because each doctor has the right to be in their own office wherever they feel, so we have eight doctors that are going to come with us. We’re just in the stages right now of designing the office space,” says Kirkland.
He adds, “We still have to sign our long-term rental or lease agreements with the doctors, but things are looking good.”
Sauble Wiarton MD Quest and the South Bruce Peninsula Family Health Organization made delegations back in the spring about using the roughly 8,000 square foot space.
During that spring delegation, 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. They told council 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.
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told council, the doctor’s offices in Wiarton could use renovation, as younger physicians may feel they layout is outdated.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.
On April 7th, council authorized staff to obtain costings associated with a contract change order to the current contract for the construction of a new Town Hall for the design, administration and construction of the proposed leased space for the South Bruce Peninsula Family Health Organization.