KENORA — A new All Nations Hospital to replace the Lake of the Woods District Hospital will be completed in 6-8 years and cost over $800 million to design and build, hospital officials told reporters Thursday.
A key feature of the new hospital will be an “expansion in traditional healing, traditional medicines (and) cultural practices” for Indigenous patients, said Cheryl O’Flaherty, CEO of the district hospital.
“We’re also hoping to build a larger campus of care, have other health-care partners co-locate on the same property as us, and really essentially build a location where the population will be able to attend for health-care services regardless of whether it’s hospital, primary care, mental health and addiction services, that sort of thing.
“We know that there will be a significant amount of work over the next three years as we go into the stage 2, which is the detailed planning leading to construction documents being readied for tender.”
The project has a 6-8-year timeline with construction hopefully starting in about three years, said Alison Wesley-James, the district hospital’s vice-president of operations and capital planning.
She said the total cost of putting up a new hospital in Kenora will be more than $800 million.
The Ontario government’s budget last week included a $50-million commitment to fund planning for the All Nations Hospital.
The new hospital will be constructed on a 118-acre parcel of land purchased by Kenora Chiefs Advisory (Ogimaawabiitong), which is part of the All Nations Health Partners Ontario Health Team that includes the district hospital.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Wabaseemoong Independent Nations Chief Waylon Scott said last week’s budget commitment demonstrates the provincial government’s “commitment to creating equity for First Nations health and including First Nations at the table and conversations for these facilities.”
With proper planning, he said, “I’m sure that we’ll have, the best hospital in the region, if not the best hospital in Ontario.”
O’Flaherty cited diagnostic imaging, mammography and mental health care as areas of excellence in the current and future hospitals.
Fred Richardson, who chairs the district hospital’s board, said “what really stands out to me is the marriage of your traditional, native medicine with the western (medicine).”
That medical union will exist “not only within the new hospital’s walls, but … in giving care into the surrounding community, Kenora and the surrounding First Nation communities,” Richardson said.
“This is groundbreaking and (reason) to say ‘yes, we're going to stand out in terms of health care in our region.”
