Southeast LHIN CEO Paul Huras.(Photo: Quinte News)
Contamination discovered on land near the Trenton Memorial Hospital
has caused a change in plans for the location of a “health hub”, and the decision isn’t popular with some of the organizations involved.
At a meeting of the partners involved in the so-called “health hub”, it will likely be announced that it will be built in downtown Trenton, where the Belleville Quinte West Community Health Centre now sits.
CEO of the Southeast Local Health Integration Network, Paul Huras, says a location near the hospital would have been great but the discovery of an unknown amount of contamination on the property has caused concerns about costs and delays in getting the hub up and running.
Huras says one very preliminary estimate put cleanup costs at $750,000 but warns once digging begins costs could quickly escalate.
He went on to tell Quinte News that costs often go up dramatically during soil remediation projects. The CEO says it wouldn’t be a prudent use of taxpayers’ money to go ahead at Trenton Memorial, especially since the building of the hub there would be delayed by remediation work.
He believes the citizens of Quinte West and Brighton deserve a health services centre sooner rather than later, and the project could proceed much more quickly, safely, and economically at the site of the Belleville Quinte West Community Health Centre on Murphy Street in Trenton’s downtown.
Meanwhile, groups wanting a hub built at Trenton Memorial will protest at a meeting this afternoon in Belleville. Those groups are the Trenton Memorial Hospital Foundation and OurTMH.
Free bus rides will be offered to the meeting by OurTMH with buses leaving Quinte West city hall at 3 this afternoon (Thursday).
The meeting at the Southeast Local Health Integration Network office on Adam Street starts at 4:30.
