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Sudbury’s St. Joseph's Continuing Care planning a new $20M rehab facility

Location is not yet announced but the project will add another 36 rehabilitation beds
060522_LG_St. Josephs expansion 2 (1)
Plans have been announced for the creation of a new $20-million rehabilitation facility to be part of the St. Joseph's Continuing Care Centre. 

St. Joseph's Continuing Care Centre (SJCCC) in Sudbury said it received exciting news this week with approval from the Ministry of Health for a planning grant for the expansion of their hospital rehabilitation care program  in Sudbury.

"This is great news," said Kari Gervais, the president and CEO at SJCCC.

"I can tell you that the overall cost of the project is certainly, it's just a little bit under the $20-million mark. So the planning grant is just for a small portion of that; I believe it's around the $1-million mark."

Once built, the facility will allow St. Joseph’s to relocate patients who have been receiving services at temporary spaces around the city.

“We applaud the Ontario government for supporting our community with much needed rehab beds. When built, they will provide critical capacity and enable us to move patients out of temporary spaces such as the Clarion Hotel. We are excited to begin planning to bring these state-of-the art beds online as quickly as possible.”

St. Joseph’s is a 64-bed rehabilitative care facility located on South Bay Road, near Laurentian University. It is the only stand-alone specialty hospital in Northeastern Ontario. 

In collaboration during the pandemic, SJCCC, Health Science North (HSN) and other health care system partners have opened and continue to operate an additional 60 beds at a temporary Transitional Care Unit at the Clarion Hotel in Sudbury.

"We'll actually be moving 36 of the beds from the Clarion over to the permanent location. This is great news because our health system really, really needs those beds that we are operating at the Clarion, but for obvious reasons, that was never intended to be a permanent location. So we're very happy to have this opportunity to look at a better permanent spot," Gervais said. 

She said the location of the new facility has been selected but the ink is not yet dry on legal documents and site plan details. Gervais expects more news to be released in the coming weeks. 

“We will continue the architectural work that we've already started and really just fine-tune the plans. And eventually we will be going out to tender and all of those great things. We're hoping to be starting construction by December 1," Gervais said. 

"But you know, the pandemic has thrown a few curveballs at every industry. I'm sure construction will not be immune to that. So we're wishing for the best and hoping for a Dec. 1 start date."

Gervais said the current success of the Clarion Hotel site for rehabilitative care helped win approval for the new project.

"So I think this is a real team effort. And it's a real success story for all of us as a community. Also, I can't say enough how supportive the officials at the Ministry of Health have been. They've been very supportive, very helpful in terms of moving our project forward, and guiding us through the different steps. So I think that's important to mention," Gervais said.

One of the important next steps she said is fundraising. Gervais said she expects the fundraising goal would be more than $2 million and more details on that will be released within several weeks. Gervais said SJCCC has a popular 50/50 cash draw that is expected to be more popular once the formal fundraising begins.

Len Gillis covers health care and mining for Sudbury.com.


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Len Gillis

About the Author: Len Gillis

Graduating from the Journalism program at Canadore College in the 1970s, Gillis has spent most of his career reporting on news events across Northern Ontario with several radio, television and newspaper companies. He also spent time as a hardrock miner.
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