Mississauga Hospitals Receive Additional Funding from Ontario Budget

The provincial budget delivered last week made an announcement to implement a new Ontario Pharmacare program, but there was also some spending for existing health care services as well. One such area was in Mississauga’s local hospitals.

According to a press release from Trillium Health Partners (THP), which oversees three hospitals in Mississauga, the Ontario government announced a plan to invest an additional $9 billion to support the construction of new hospital projects across the province, including two major redevelopment and expansion projects at the Mississauga Hospital and Queensway Health Centre. Other new or redeveloped hospitals were awarded to Hamilton, Niagara, Windsor and Moosonee (which is up in northern Ontario at the southern tip of James Bay) as part of the $9 billion in funding in last week’s budget.

The press release also said this announcement marks the government’s approval of THP’s proposed plans to expand and replace aging hospital infrastructure. The plan would add over 500 new hospital beds and replace over 500 existing beds as well. The redevelopment plan will involve a new acute care tower at the Mississauga Hospital and new post-acute complex at the Queensway Health Centre. The proposed projects will also free up a significant amount of capacity at the Credit Valley Hospital site.

It’s important to remember these statistics about Trillium Health Partners:

• One of the busiest hospitals in Canada with over 1.6 Million patient visits annually.

• Emergency departments and Urgent Care Centre see over 273,000 visits per year.

• THP performs over 60,000 surgeries per year, more than any other hospital in Ontario

• Over 8,000 babies are delivered at THP every year.

The issue of overcrowding in hospitals and stretching their resources beyond their capacities has been in the news lately, with one Brampton woman having to wait five days in the hallway of Brampton Civic Hospital because there were no enough beds there at the time. While the budget didn’t provide a specific commitment to increase the number of beds at Brampton Civic Hospital, the budget does indicate an additional $518 million for all hospitals for operating expenses and to increase access across the board.

Will the Wynne provincial government make an announcement in the future, regarding additional beds for Brampton Civic Hospital? As a provincial election looms over their government, that is a possibility as this Premier looks to salvage her chances in the vote rich Peel Region.

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