Ottawa residents in the city's east end will soon be able to easily access health care services usually only found in hospitals.
The province is investing $1 million to help the Montfort Hospital develop plans for the Orleans Family Health Hub, which will offer a variety of health care services under one roof.
"We can't just keep building bigger hospitals and what the health hub will do will be move a lot of those services out to the community, out to Orleans, and they'll be delivered here at less costs and closer to people's homes," said Phil McNeely, MPP for Ottawa-Orleans.
The new health hub, which is the first of its kind in Ontario, is expected to limit the time patients spend travelling for dialysis treatment, cancer assessments, as well as some day surgeries.
"This health care hub would make a difference for people in the Ottawa area, especially Francophones. They would have one-stop access to a range of services to help keep them healthy, and timely treatment when they're sick," said Premier Dalton McGuinty.
He said the new mini-hospitals address problems associated with an aging population that's growing and a shrinking younger population who might have difficulty paying for the health care costs of their elders.
"What we've got to do for ourselves and for them is to find less expensive, but better ways for us to deliver health care," McGuinty told reporters at a news conference on Thursday.
An Orleans family health team will form the core of the new health care centre. The facility will also house the Champlain Community Care Access Centre, which helps families connect with home care, long-term care and other services.
"(Doctors) will be doing the same things they did before, but they'll be having other health care professionals working alongside them. The team approach is the new approach in Ontario," said McNeely.
Construction on the new mini-hospital could begin in just over one year. It's expected to open in late 2011.
