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It was a tough pill to swallow. Wednesday night, Kincardine council
was given a preliminary idea of the size and cost of an addition to the
Kincardine Community Medical Clinic and the price tag comes in at a
whopping $5million.
Lynne Wilson Orr and Brent Whiteley of Parkin Architects of Toronto
explained the proposal noting, "It is just a preliminary report to give
the municipality something to consider.
The 14,000 square foot addition on two levels would provides offices for
12 doctors, 30 examination rooms, a 2,000 square foot waiting room,
patient washrooms and a nursing station. It expands the clinical
support and administration areas, provides a lunchroom, staff room and
lockers. It also includes retail space of up to 4,200 square feet for
McKechnie Pharmacy, which was forced to leave the lower floor of the
existing clinic due to mould caused by poor drainage. The existing
clinic basement has since been cleaned up and renovated.
"The proposed addition has "shelled" space for future renovations should
a Family Health Team come to Kincardine," said Whiteley, "and it
provides 1,100 square feet for a rehabilitation centre and space for
extra offices." In the plan, the addition would be built between the
clinic and Kincardine hospital, with the pharmacy built to the south.
"The lower level of the new building would be for expansion purposes,"
added Whiteley.
Councillor Randy Roppel objected to any services on the lower floor
saying, "Kincardine has already had enough problem cleaning up the
current basement. Put it all on the one floor and go with that," he
said.
Mayor Larry Kraemer disagreed, noting the lower floor of the clinic has
been fixed by professionals and is usable. Whiteley outlined the
proposed cost of $3.3 million for the clinic portion of the addition,
including renovations of $600,000, new construction of $2.42 million and
site drainage work of $300,000. The non-clinic portion, including the
pharmacy, would cost $1.278 million, with the pharmacy at $952,650 and
lower level renovations at $325,500. Including a contingency fund, the
total comes to almost $5 million. (next column)
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(continued)
"Wow, I need to chew on this for awhile," said Kraemer. Councillor
Kenneth Craig agreed. "These are bigger numbers than what we were
anticipating." "Double," Kraemer pointed out.
"I'm a little taken aback," agreed Councillor Guy Anderson. "We were
thinking of a 10,000 square foot addition at a cost of about $2
million. Not 15,000 square feet at a cost of $5 million. I hope we can
pare this back to what we had in mind originally. This is a tremendous
amount of money. I say again, we should not be in the health care
business."
Wilson Orr stressed again that, "This is merely a preliminary report for
Council to consider. We had four rounds of consultations with all
those involved. We considered the number of doctors, the nursing
clinics and the increase to the size of the pharmacy. We checked with
the clinic in Hanover and we have considered the drainage problems at
the current clinic."
"Are we going to increase the rent for the pharmacy?" asked Adnerson.
"Are we going to break even?"
"No," said Kraemer.
"The pharmacy will be larger," said Councillor Ron Hewitt. "If
taxpayers' money is being used for a retail outlet, we must make it
revenue neutral. Perhaps it won't be feasible for him (McKechnie)
anymore."
Council agreed to discuss the proposed addition at the Corporate
Services Committee meeting October 8th.
In the meantime, Council will tour the remediated clinic and will invite
doctor recruiter, Lyn Bos, for a status report.
"I don't want to think that we've built the new Kincardine hospital
(with this addition)," said Craig. "That's not our mandate."
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