Hospital makes $7.8M pitch to move more services to new wellness centre

Now that the residential withdrawal management and safe beds facility has opened at the Northway Wellness Centre, Sault Area Hospital is actively seeking to add more of its services to the former Sault Star building in a second phase of construction.

In its original business cases presented to Ontario’s Ministry of Health in 2018 and revised in 2020, many of the hospital’s mental health and addictions services were to be consolidated under one roof, said Lisa Case, director of clinical program for mental health and addictions at Sault Area Hospital.

“Based on resources, both financial and human capital resources, it was recommended to us or directed to us that we split it up and do it in a phased approach to make it more manageable,” said Case. “I think yes that was, although frustrating in some ways because we know the synergies that would be available from a construction perspective and such, it was wise advice.”

Phase 1 was recently completed and opened in the former Sault Star site at a cost of about $20 million. The hospital’s residential withdrawal management and safe beds from its main site was relocated into an approximate 16,000 square foot portion of the building.

“This project has been incredibly valuable and meaningful for our team,” said Case. “It has also been exhausting. We are taking a quick breath and then pushing forward with this next phase.”

Case told SooToday the hospital’s application for funding Phase 2 has been presented to the Ministry of Health. Co-locating many of the hospital's mental health and addictions services into the Northway site comes with an approximate price tag of $7.8 million over and above what has already been spent.

If approved, Phase 2 would see the relocation and consolidation of a number of existing off-site SAH programs into the currently unused 9,000 square foot portion of the building. Those services include the Addiction Treatment Clinic, Psychiatric Medication Clinic and Rapid Access Addiction Medicine Clinic.

If a separate funding request is also granted, the hospital's Concurrent Disorders Intensive Day Treatment could also one day be offered from the Northway Wellness Centre.

Currently, people seeking services to treat mental health and addictions are required to attend different clinics spread throughout the community to get the full range of care required.

“People are having to bounce all over our community to get care, including if they need multiple appointments or supports with various team members on any given day,” said Case. “They spend most of their time on the bus or looking for a place to park. We would like to bring them all under one roof and be able to support people.”

Instead, said Case, patients could find many of the services that complement each other under one roof.

“Really, they could be walked from one side of the building to the other and get that immediate support or assessment from our care team,” she said.

If the funding request for Phase 2 is granted, it will create a one-stop shop for patients seeking care, said SAH’s Mental Health Program medical director Dr. Curtis Obadan.

“It’s about providing not just the acute support but also being able to provide a continuation of care and also engage in some form of rehabilitation for our clients,” said Obadan. “Having the second phase up and running would really help us to put the pieces in our puzzle [together] and hopefully help us to support our clients and provide sufficient care for them.”

Obadan said the sooner Phase 2 can be completed and the services moved to the site on Old Garden River Road, the better.

Sault MPP Ross Romano told SooToday it was not unexpected to see plans for Phase 2 submitted to the ministry, even if it came a little sooner than expected.

“This was expected, this was anticipated, this was welcomed,” Romano said of the application. “I didn’t necessarily appreciate that the application was going to be submitted shortly before the opening of Northway, but it was always something that was in the works.”

Romano said he will continue to advocate within the government for funding for the project.

“The additional resources that will be required from a financial perspective on just capital alone are going to be challenging but that is not going to, in any way, stop me from trying to pursue them,” he said.

The SAH services that would be moved to the Northway Wellness Centre already exist in the community, noted Romano.

“Being able to consolidate is a sensible thing to do, but by no means are we lacking in what our services are,” he said.

Case said between the time it opened on Sept. 25 to Oct. 9, Northway Wellness Centre had 40 admission to care with a length of stay anywhere from one night to two weeks. It has also received an increase in the number of calls from people asking about care in the facility.

“That is what we were aiming for, more people being able to access care that is appropriate for them in the right environment,” she said.

The fact SAH has delivered Phase 1 of the Northway Wellness Centre hopefully bodes well for the application for Phase 2, said Case.

“Based on our current reconciliation with our team we are on time and on budget and that, to me, describes to the ministry that our team locally and community partners can pull off a project of this size with success,” said Case.