PAGE 10, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 1986, WHITBY FREE PRESS v Administrator Jim Miller the future is just around the corner As Whitby pushes out itL borders almost daily to ac commodate an ever expanding population ther is a corresponding increas in the demand for services at every level in the com munity. Nowhere, however is that demand for service expected to be felt more dramatically then at Whit- by's Dr. Joseph O Ruddy General Hospital. In 1984, aware of the rapidly encroaching need for increased health care services in Whitby, the hospital's board of directors commissioned a role review and master program study by consultants Ernst an'd Whinney of Toronto. ,The results of that study make the urgency of the hospital's requirements only too clear. Based on population projections and changing hospital utilization trends in Whitby and the surrounding area, the ' consultants predicted J.O. Ruddy will require 240 to 255 medical, surgical and chronic care beds by 1991 - ap- proximately two and a half times the current total of 97 beds in the hospital. In the almost 20 years that have lapsed since J.O. Ruddy was built in the late 1960's, the level of service provided by the facility has not changed significantly due largely to the fact that Whitby in isolation has not had the population base to support any significant in- creases in the level of ser- vice. For any given service s there is a logical number of - people needed to support - that service, according to e hospital administrator Jim e Miller who says this led to- Ruddy's dependence on the - Oshawa Generál Hospital for most medical specialties Ind has kept it from becorÃing the full ser- - vice hospital Miller and Ruddy's'board of directors would one day like to see. "ye're trying to break away from that Oshawa axis. They're looking after more than half our people and it's that relationship that has kept us at the status quo," says the ad- ministrator. In fact, unless J.O. Ruddy begins to grow in its own right, Miller fears that the time may come when the population boom could keep Whitby residents biding their time on waiting lists to get into Oshawa General and as J.O. Ruddy's ad- ministrator this kind of eventuality has to figure promnently in his thinking. "If we kept growing like this Oshawa may have to turn away Whitby patients.i I'm not saying that this will necessarily .happen but you've got to serve yourj own first and we have to1 look ahead. I want to make1 sure we've got a good1 hospital here and that we'rei ready to meet Whitby's( needs."C According to the Ernst1 and Whinney study, the way 1 for J.O. Ruddy to breaks away from Oshawa General is to team up in a co- operative venture with the Ajax and Pickering Hospital which Miller describes as being at a similar stage in its development. The study states that: "•the combined referral populations of the two facilities can better ensure the recruitment of medical specialists (and thus im- prove medical services to the residents of Whitby, Ajax and Pickering; •improved medical ser- vices...have the potential to stem the outflow of residen- ts in Whitby, Ajax and Pickering to other hospital centres; and *cooperative develop- ment has the potential to create economic benefits related to shared services." The Ernst and Whinney study is now before the Durham Region District Health Council, a provin- cially created body whose function it is to oversee shared growth and expan- sion of hospital services to ensure that there is no 1 redundancy in new 1 programs. According to 1 Town of Whitby ad- 1 ministrator Bill Wallace,( vice president of the J.O.( Ruddy board of directors, the council's cooperation s will be needed if the joint 1 development of J.O. Ruddy t and Ajax and Pickering s Hospital is to be accom- s plished smoothly. Wallace r says a preliminary meeting u with the health council was encouraging but the board is still waiting upon an of- ficial report from a com- mittee set up by the council to study Ernst and Whin- ney's findings. "Our needs, with the dynamics going on in the whole area, are significant and in the next five years at least we're going to have to give consideration to ex- pansion. We need more acute care beds and chronic care beds especially. And we'll be seeking assistance through the public too with various fund raising ac- tivities for equipment ad- ditions and expanded programs," says Wallace. Indeed, the cost of building J.O. Ruddy Hospital into a full service facility, even when shared with Ajax and Pickering, has yet to be determined but it is a safe bet it could mount into many millions of dollars. Miller says the hospital is presently discussing sharing the ser- vices of an orthopaedic surgeon with Ajax- Pickering and, Miller adds, the cost of setting up an or- thopaedic surgeon in the hospital could run into hun- dreds of thousands of dollars. This for just one medicali specialist. The Ernst and Whinney study suggests hat the hospital also con-g ider adding ful clinicali ervices in general] medicine, general surgery,i trological surgery, oral surgery, opthalmology, a rehabilitation unit, radiology, pathology, and a continuing care unit, some of which are now offered by the hospital at less than the level of full service. In ad- dition to these the study recommends adding on a consulting basis neurology, dermatology, plastic surgery, gynaecological surgery, paediatrics otolaryngology, and psychiatry. With the growth of the hospital's specialist population, the increase in acute and chronic care beds and the necessary growth in ancillary services, J.O. Ruddy will have to 'expand its physical plant. When the hospital was first built it was designed to accom- modate the addition of up to seven more floors but this too will cost money - a lot of money. Miller says most of that money will have to come from the province but whether or not the province will see fit to put up the money that will be necessary depends to at least some degree on whether or not the district health council supports the expansion. As Dr. Joseph 0. Ruddy Hospital's board of direc- tors waits upon the findings of the council's special committee, they may, un- derstandably, be just a little nervous. The board, and the people of Whitby have a lot riding on their conclusions. L A:t :D:rr :o. J. 0. 1 Ruddy 1-lospital l' îill;emw