Hospital community campaign transitions to next phase

Today, the Town of Whitby announced next steps in the community advocacy campaign to bring a new hospital to Durham and care closer to home for residents.

Over the past eight weeks, almost 4,000 people have supported the campaign by signing a call-to-action letter or sharing a personal story about why a new hospital matters to them. As a next step, the Town will be papering municipal facilities with orange hearts, with each heart representing a resident who has supported the campaign. Residents can help keep the momentum going by visiting whitby.ca/newhospital to sign the call-to-action letter and have their heart added to the wall.

At the launch event for the next phase of the campaign, Mayor Roy was asked about the Premier’s comments made April 3 about her efforts to bring a new hospital to Durham. Here is the Town’s response:

The Premier is misdirecting the public with inaccurate allegations that are frankly disrespectful to the thousands of people who took the time to support our campaign and share personal stories. Standing up for the residents of Whitby is not being a bully. It’s doing my job. The Province continues to say that a hospital for Durham is coming. What I’m asking is, when? I will continue to ask until we get an answer. I’m very concerned that today the Premier stated that the Province will select the site of the new Durham hospital. This is exactly why Whitby continues to advocate, to support the decision that was made by the independent expert panel more than two years ago.

-       Whitby Mayor Elizabeth Roy 

What Premier Ford said this morning is entirely inaccurate and frankly disrespectful of the nearly 4,000 call-to-action letters and personal stories shared by residents from across the region. Residents signed up to show their support for a new Durham hospital, not for a chance to win one of four prizes. The hospital community advocacy campaign launched by the Town was multi-purpose, aimed at both educating and engaging our community on a matter that residents said was of the utmost importance to them. The offer of prizing to help drive participation is standard practice used by many municipalities. It’s also important to note that emails are collected only as a means of validating submissions to prevent spam. Mayor and Council do not have access to emails provided.

-       Whitby Chief Administrative Officer Matt Gaskell

Listen to audio of the Premier's comments made on April 3

These comments are in response to a CBC question about the Town's campaign for a new Durham hospital. The relevant clip can be found at the 41:20 minute mark.

Below is a transcript of the Premier's comments: 

“Well, I think that’s the Mayor that actually is collecting people’s names, holding a lottery that if you give me your name or email address you get a free gym membership or you get an iPhone watch or you get all these little treats. I don’t know, but I will ask the Minister, I don’t think that’s proper for Mayor’s to go out, it’s like me going out to a community and saying “let me collect all your emails for certain purposes and all of a sudden I get these emails offering them watches, I’m offering gym memberships. Folks, that is wrong. You can't be doing that. Elected officials cannot be pulling these games. We've committed to make sure we have a hospital in Durham. We're going to go through the process and I'm not going to be bullied by that mayor out there that's constantly going, going out there and offering everything under the kitchen sink. Maybe the Integrity Commissioner should be looking into, are politicians allowed to offer gifts if they get your email. It’s really unbelievable. So, I’ll leave it at that, but the folks at Durham, we've shown them a tremendous amount of love. They'll be getting a hospital and we'll determine the site.”

For media inquiries, contact:

Jillian Follert
Public Affairs Coordinator, Office of the Mayor, Town of Whitby
Phone: 289.387.9101
Email: follertj@whitby.ca

Erin Mikaluk
Manager, Communications and Creative Services, Town of Whitby
Phone: 289.314.6913
Email: mikaluke@whitby.ca

Background Information

The Province of Ontario first recommended a new acute care hospital for Durham Region in 2015, recognizing the significant, rapid, and continued growth expected in the area. 

The Current Status of the New Hospital for Durham

• Two years ago, in January 2022 – following a transparent, two-stage site selection process – Lakeridge Health announced lands in Whitby as the preferred site for a proposed new hospital for Durham Region. 
• On March 8, Pickering Mayor Kevin Ashe and Whitby Mayor Elizabeth Roy sent a joint letter to Premier Ford about the need for a new hospital in Durham Region.
• Despite the Premier publicly stating there will be a new Durham hospital in Whitby on a local radio station, there has still been no movement on the $3 million Planning Grant and land commitment required to move this project forward.
• On March 26, 2024, Ontario released a third consecutive provincial budget without the Planning Grant required for a new Durham hospital. 
• The Town of Whitby continues to advocate for provincial support in the process to bring a new hospital to the Whitby location to provide critical health care closer to home for all Durham residents.

Quotes From Provincial Elected Officials About a New Durham Hospital

• “There’s going to be a Whitby hospital. Not tomorrow, but down the road, very shortly, we will be issuing the planning grants.” – Ontario Premier Doug Ford on CKDO Radio, February 15, 2024
• “Whitby in the Durham Region is absolutely on our radar in terms of where the next steps will happen” - Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones, Next-step funding to build new Whitby hospital absent from Ontario budget article in The Trillium, March 28, 2024
• “We’re working around the clock to advance that project for Whitby and for Durham. As the premier said, ‘not tomorrow,’ but stay tuned.” - Ontario Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy, Ontario’s finance minister responds to Whitby’s disappointment on lack of hospital funding in budget, Durham Radio News, March 27, 2024
• "As Premier Ford said recently, while we are not issuing any new planning grants right now, we will be building a new hospital in Whitby for the people of Durham Region." - Whitby MPP Lorne Coe statement on hospital, March 27, 2024 

The Prizing Process

• Many municipalities use prizing to encourage engagement in important matters that impact them and their community.
• Similar to other large Town engagement projects, the Town offered four prizes for education and engagement for this hospital advocacy campaign. With a focus on health care, prizes were selected to reflect health. This includes three in-kind prizes and one apple watch the Town paid for.

1. 1. In-Kind: 12-Month Town of Whitby Health Club Family Membership: (at least one parent or one guardian, up to a maximum of two adults (18yrs+) and children (17yrs and younger) living in the same residence up to a maximum of 5 people) – The total value of this prize is $1,100.75.
   2. In-Kind: One of Two Get Active Prize Packs: includes one (1) backpack valued at $30, a swim towel valued at $20, and two Town of Whitby Get Active Passes valued at $10 each. The total value of this prize is $70.
   3. Paid: Apple Watch SE (GPS) 44mm Midnight Sports Band: total value of this prize is $416.97.

The Site

• The preferred site selected by Lakeridge Health for the new hospital is located south of Highway 407, west of Highway 412, east of Lake Ridge Road and north of Highway 7/Winchester Road located in Whitby.
• The land is currently owned by the Ministry of Transportation. 
• The Whitby site was chosen because it is centrally located in the heart of Durham, less than 1 kilometre from three 400-series on ramps and three 400-series off ramps – critically important for what will be the only trauma centre between Toronto and Kingston. 

The Site Selection Process

• Lakeridge Health began their site selection process for the new hospital in 2021.
• This process was overseen by a fairness advisor and involved an independent, non-partisan expert panel with no connections to the region to ensure objectivity.
• Lakeridge Health submitted a $3M Planning Grant request to the Ministry of Health in Spring 2022 – this grant is a critical next step to move the project forward. Two provincial budgets have now been tabled without funding for this grant.
• The Ministry of Transportation and the Town of Whitby have been working on the land disposition process since 2021. The allocation of this land aligns with the Ministry mandate letters. 

Why It Matters

• The current Lakeridge Health hospital system can’t keep up with current demand and this will only increase as the community grows.
• Durham is one of the fastest growing region in Canada, with a population expected to be over one million people in less than 20 years. Almost one third of the population is expected to be seniors aged 65 and older who will require more, and increasingly complex, care.
• By 2041, Lakeridge Health will need 1,793 beds. That’s more than double the current count. 
• The Province of Ontario requires every municipality to build a minimum number of homes to support population growth. The Town of Whitby has committed to partnering with the Province to support the construction of 18,000 new homes in Whitby by 2031. More healthcare infrastructure is needed to support this growth.
• There is a gap in critical care in areas of high growth. The map below shows the location of the Whitby site depicted with the green dot. The red crosses depict the location of existing acute care hospitals in and near Durham. The red circles represent a 15-minute travel time to each hospital. The light orange shaded areas show approved areas of growth within the Durham Official Plan.