Province giving local hospitals $1.47M for infrastructure work

Windsor Regional Hospital and Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare will receive a combined $1.47 million from the Ontario government’s Health Infrastructure Renewal Fund to upgrade health-care infrastructure.

Steve Erwin, manager of communications at Windsor Regional Hospital, said the $714,137 in funding received by the hospital will go toward improving the backup generator system at Ouellette Campus.

“Ouellette has a number of needs; it’s an older facility that has been around for some time,” he said.

“So we’ve got a number of maintenance and repair issues at the campus, but this is one that we identified as something we’d like to pursue with this funding.”

Bill Marra, vice-president of external affairs at Hotel-Dieu, said their $755,937 in provincial funding will go toward “a lot of important infrastructure — air handling, fire alarms and our underground tank replacement for backup power.”

Marra said $590,000 will go toward underground fuel tank replacement, $50,000 to upgrade the campus fire alarm system and $120,000 to the air handler system.

The underground tank replacement is underway. Marra said the other two projects will be completed by the end of the year.

Other area hospitals to receive funding from the $175-million Health Infrastructure Renewal Fund are: $1.2 million to Bluewater Health; $643,722 to the Public General Hospital Society of Chatham;

$1.88 million to the Sydenham District Hospital;

$428,819 to Erie Shores Healthcare, formerly Leamington District Memorial Hospital.