NEWS RELEASE
ROYAL VICTORIA REGIONAL HEALTH CENTRE
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Five years after Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) opened a $450 million expansion that doubled its size, the health centre has begun planning for the future; a future which includes a south campus to meet healthcare needs in rapidly-growing Innisfil and South Barrie.
That planning process, dubbed MP2, is being overseen by the Board of Directors’ newly-formed Capital Planning Committee, chaired by the board’s second Vice Chair, Doug Frost. The committee includes hospital and RVH Foundation board members, hospital executives, a representative from the North Simcoe Muskoka Local Health Integration Network, municipal representatives from Barrie, Innisfil, Bradford West Gwillimbury and the County of Simcoe, as well as community representatives.
“Planning for an additional facility is a 15 to 20 year process. To meet the healthcare needs of our region in the future, we must begin the planning now,” says Doug Frost, committee chair, noting that in 2009, a 50-acre parcel of land in Innisfil, at the 6th Line and Yonge Street, was donated to RVH by the Cortel Group.
Before expansion approvals are given, the provincial government requires hospitals to undertake comprehensive Master Programming and Master Planning. Those two planning studies will explore, in great detail, the services RVH should provide in the future, the preferred location and infrastructure planning.
RVH’s Board of Directors recently unanimously accepted the recommendation of the Capital Planning Committee and approved the Toronto-based Diamond Schmitt Architects as the lead consultants for the planning project. The initial focus of the work will be on the ‘south campus’ including the campus location and land assessment, as well as data collection and analysis to identify healthcare needs and service gaps. The process will include significant community consultation.
RVH is also partnering with the Town of Innisfil to lease space and provide some health services in the municipality’s new Community Health Hub, which is scheduled to open in early 2019 next to the Innisfil Recreation Complex at Yonge Sreet and Innisfil Beach Road.
MP2 will also assess the future use of RVH’s existing facility or ‘north campus’, including the unfinished, ‘shelled’ space that was built as part of the expansion.
Since opening the expansion in 2012, RVH has grappled with surging patient volumes. The health centre has experienced surge conditions for the past year and on most days every bed is full. In fact medical/surgical occupancy rate at RVH is consistently over 115 per cent and recently hit 135 per cent.
“Those surging volumes mean RVH must care for patients in unconventional spaces, including hallways. And when there are no beds available, wait times grow,” explains Janice Skot, RVH president and CEO. “With RVH’s current 40-acre site almost fully utilized, it’s imperative that we plan for both the short and long-term future and ensure area residents have easy access to quality healthcare.”
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