=— a, Stratford Times duly 12, 2024 _ 2a Perth-Wellington hospitals receive $6.1 million in provincial funding for upgrades and repairs GALEN SIMMONS Regional Editor Four rural hospitals in Perth and Wel- lington counties, including the Strat- ford General Hospital and the St. Marys Memorial Hospital, have received more than $6.1 million combined through the province’s Health Infrastructure Renew- al Fund (HIRF) and Exceptional Circum- stances Project Grant (ECPG) program. In a recent press release, Perth-Welling- ton MPP Matthew Rae announced the Stratford General Hospital would receive nearly $1.44 million and the St. Marys Memorial Hospital would receive more than $217,000 through the HIRF in 2024- “Our local public hospitals provide high-quality care,” Rae said in the press release. “It is funding like this that will al- low them to continue providing that care locally. This funding demonstrates our government’s commitment to our local rural hospitals.” In an email, Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance president and CEO Andrew Wil- liams told Grant Haven Media the funds are earmarked for a number of projects across both hospital sites. In Stratford, the money will be used for LED lighting and sprinkler installations in the east build- ing, as well as additional window replace- ments in the west building. In St. Marys, that money will go to LED lighting up- grades, north-wing window replacements and upgrades to the ambulance, main and Meighen wing exterior-entrance doors. “As always, we truly value the support we receive from the government through the Hospital Infrastructure Renewal Fund and very much appreciate MPP Rae’s on- going advocacy on our behalf,” Williams said. Meanwhile, the Listowel Memorial Hos- pital will receive a total of more than $3.2 million — nearly $248,000 from the HIRF and $3 million through ECPG — while the North Wellington Health Care Corpora- tion will get a total of more than $1.2 mil- lion — nearly $366,000 from the HIRF and $850,000 through ECPG — in 2024-2025. At the Listowel Memorial Hospital, those funds will go towards complet- ing a multi-year heating, ventilation and air-conditioning project, as well as building-security upgrades. At the North Wellington Health Care Corporation, the funds will support critical-infrastructure projects including updates to electrical equipment and power supplies to prepare for a planned MRI installation. Neither the Stratford or St. Marys hos- pitals received any funding through the ECPG program as part of this announce- ment. “We were made aware that the demand for funds far exceeded funds available (through the ECPG program) and that funds dispersed by the province over and above the base (HIRF) amounts received are towards those projects deemed most urgent,” Williams said of not receiving any additional funding. The Ontario government is investing more than $228 million this year to sup- port critical infrastructure upgrades and repairs at 129 hospitals and 58 community health-care facilities across the province. This funding from the province allows its health-care providers to address urgent infrastructure renewal needs such as up- grades or replacements of roofs, windows, security systems, fire alarms and back-up generators. This year’s increase includes an addi- tional $20 million through the ECPG, which is designed to provide targeted support for the most urgent hospital in- frastructure renewal needs throughout the rovince. “Under the leadership of Premier Ford, our government is making record invest- ments in the health care system to ensure people are able to access care at state-of- the-art hospitals and community health providers,” said Ontario Minister of Health Sylvia Jones in the press release. “This year, our government is investing an additional $20 million to allow facilities to modernize and make critical upgrades, en- suring people can connect to the care they need, when they need it, close to home.” HIRF was established in 1999 and pro- vides annualized funding to assist hospi- tals in renewing their facilities. This in- cludes upgrades, repairs and maintenance projects. Grants through the HIRF sup- plement hospital needs on a priority basis. This allows hospitals to decide where to invest the money and lets them proceed quickly with projects. Ee} Perth County council to consider scrapping $10,000 Cultivating Opportunity Grant program GALEN SIMMONS Regional Editor Perth County council will soon consider whether to scrap the now $10,000 annual Cultivating Opportunity Grant program to help reduce the overall tax burden on county residents. At the July 4 Perth County council meeting, county clerk and manager of legislative services Tyler Sager present- ed council with a report outlining a few recommended policy changes to the Culti- vating Opportunity Grant program. While the program, prior to this year, had been funded by the county in two streams — one for tree-planting projects with a total of the $25,000 in county funding available and the other to support not-for-profit and charitable organizations in the county with programs and services that benefit county residents with a total of $10,000 in funding available — council opted last year to transfer the tree-planting funding stream to the new Perth County Steward- ship Program, which supports environ- mental projects that protect the county’s air, water and soil. The proposed policy changes, Sager ex- plained to councillors, would eliminate any reference to the tree-planting fund- ing, eliminate reference to two streams of funding since there is only one now, make. minor spelling and grammar corrections and transfer the policy into a new acces- sible format. While council ultimately ap- proved those policy changes, Coun. Hugh McDermid suggested councillors discuss whether the county should continue to of- fer Cultivating Opportunity grants given the county’s 12.31 per-cent tax-levy in- crease this year. “T think we should look at the fact that last year we increased our (levy) by 12.31 per cent,” McDermid said. “I realize that $10,000 is only 0.045 per cent of the levy, but! think this coming year is going to bea double (digit) increase again. We (should) at least look at something to give up. (It would show) goodwill for our taxpayers that we are at least doing something. “[ve seen in the news that an awful lot of municipalities are cutting ... things out of their budget because they can’t afford them anymore, and it seems that our stew- ardship program is going to get another $25,000. The amount of staff time that’s spent on this seems to be. excessive, so I would move that we put this program on vacation until we are better able to finance it.” With county staff set to begin early preparations for this year’s Cultivating Opportunity Grant program by the end of this month or in August so the application process can begin in the fall, Coun. Todd Kasenberg suggested staff defer that work at least until after council’s next meeting Aug. 1. At that meeting, Kasenberg asked staff to bring a report on the Cultivating Opportunity Grant program and similar programs offered by other municipalities in the region so councillors can discuss the merits of either keeping it running or eliminating it altogether. “When we consider a move to get rid of a county-based grant program, we need to give the public the opportunity to of- fer comment,” Kasenberg said. “I’m not willing today to rush into this. I think we should send a message to the public that we intend to consider more completely whether we intend to discontinue this pro- gram’s funding.” While no decision on the program has been made yet, councillors Jerry Smith and Sue Orr spoke out against discontinu- ing the grant program, with Orr backing a suggestion made by Coun. Jim Aitcheson earlier in the discussion about streamlin- ing the program to lessen the workload for staff. “This grant is cultivating opportuni- ties,” Smith said. “We’re recommending approving new subdivisions, we want more people to come to our communities, to come to the county. We start removing some of these things and, as Coun. Mc- Dermid mentioned, it’s 0.04 per cent of our budget for $10,000; we'll see some of these people not come to Perth County. They'll go to a different county. This is a great grant program to help a little bit. I’m totally not in favour of removing it or cancelling it. Every little bit helps and we shouldn’t have a problem funding this ° 5 As it stands, the Cultivating Opportuni- ty Grant program has a total of $10,000 to distribute annually among successful applicants, each of which is eligible for a maximum’ of $2,500. In 2023, funding through the community stream of this program was awarded to the Perth County Transition Home for Women (Optimism Place Women’s Shelter and Support Ser- vices), the Perth County 4-H Association, the Humane Society of Kitchener-Water- loo and Stratford-Perth, and the North Perth Seniors Centre. This year, funding was granted to Stratford Summer Music, United Way Perth-Huron and the Huron Perth Ag Science Centre. According to Sager, since the program was revamped and refreshed, the num- ber of grant applications per year has in- creased from an average of just 2.6 from 2018-2022 up to 7.5 in 2023 and 2024. STRATFORD Contribute to your local community newspaper! 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