“I don't think your business case is strong enough,” said North East LHIN CEO Louise Paquette.
LHIN Board member Dr. Colin Germond said his biggest concern was that the hospital panel could not provide clear numbers on how many families from northeastern Ontario travel to Ottawa and Toronto for pediatric care.
Germond added representatives with the ministry in Toronto would not be as sympathetic to the toll travelling for health-care services can have on children and their families, as people who come from the North.
“If we don't make a very good business case, the ministry may not agree,” he said.
Health Sciences North has numbers. NorthernLife.ca detailed them in a story published back in May.
When it comes to travelling, Health Sciences North refers 125 children per year to SickKids and the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), and about 500 a year from across northeastern Ontario.
But the total amount of children who travel for outpatient treatment is actually much higher. Many children are referred to clinics and specialists through a variety of ways (family doctor, walk-in clinics, pediatricians, etc.), making numbers difficult to track.
And it's those numbers the LHIN board is looking for — total figures for just how many northern families are forced to travel to southern Ontario to seek treatment for a sick child.
Being without those numbers may not be the hospital's fault. Murray said during the presentation that CHEO and SickKids will not provide clear data on the number of patients they accept from the North.
“We don't have a great pool of data we can just pull numbers from,” he said. “We'll see where we can get that information. If it needs a Freedom of Information request, we'll do that — if we can get it other ways, we'll do that as well.”
Even though it shot down the idea today, the LHIN board offered to help the hospital gather any information it needs to make a stronger business case for the NEO Kids Centre.
Dr. Roy said he plans to have a better business case ready by September, in time for the board's next meeting.
For Murray, who first conceived of an expanded centre for pediatric care in the North 10 years ago, the setback is “just another step on the road.”
But he added there is a clear need for more children's care in Sudbury.
“We can't waste too much more time on getting this done,” he said.
NEO Kids plan
A new building would allow the hospital to expand its roster of five pediatricians to at least eight, and tackle four new areas of tertiary care for children.The expansion would provide more services for neurology, gastroenterology – which deals with the stomach and issues like acid reflux; cardiology; and endocrinology – which handles the diagnosis and treatment of diseases related to hormones, and includes thyroid disorders and diabetes.
To get the capital project off the ground, the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care would need to cover 90 per cent of the new centre's $55-million price tag, and the hospital would cover the remaining 10 per cent, or roughly $5.5 million.
