Mega-Hospital opponents circulate petition at Open Streets festival

By Keerthana Veerapandian

Opponents of Windsor’s Mega hospital project called for a “re-think” of the proposal during the city’s Open Streets festival.

They urged residents to sign a petition calling on officials to restart the site selection process for a new hospital. They say the proposed location at County Road 42 near the airport is too far away from the core.

“I’ve got to travel 30 kilometers to get to the hospital and there is no frequent public transports too,” said Michelle Oncea. “We need hospitals where people live and not in farmlands which is too long to reach in emergency situations.”

Most Windsorites would no longer be able to walk to the emergency room but the location is better for people in Essex County, said Oncea.

Petition organizer Doug Charles wants to take the signatures to Queen’s Park.

“A single hospital, in the shadow of an airport, on active agricultural land, literally miles from any existing city neighborhood, without transit, hydro, water, gas, or urban arterial road access, is a mistake,” said Charles.

The $2 Billion mega-hospital plan calls for replacing Windsor Regional’s two aging buildings with a state-of-the-art acute-care hospital on land at County Road 42 and Concession 9.

It also includes building an urgent-care center at the former Grace Hospital site, moving 60 acute-care mental health beds to the Tayfour site on Prince Road, and having Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare take over Windsor Regional’s Ouellette Avenue site for outpatient mental health care services and chronic disease management.

The plan as is will cause an inconvenience to downtown residents losing existing inner-city facilities, said Charles. Even if the hospital is never built, the rezoning recently approved by council will promote unneeded urban sprawl and further harm the core, said Charles.