Proposed St. Thomas facility

For Immediate Release March 14, 2011
From Elgin-Middlesex-London MPP Steve Peters

Environmentally-friendly facility to boost local economy during construction

ST. THOMAS – St. Joseph’s Health Care, London (St. Joseph’s) and Infrastructure Ontario announced today that Integrated Team Solutions (ITS) has signed a contract to design, build, finance and maintain two new mental health care facilities in St. Thomas and London.

Today’s announcement signals that all contractual steps are complete, the financing set and construction can begin.

Construction will start in April 2011 and is expected to be completed December 2014. The project, which will include the construction of the two facilities totalling 689,700 square feet of new space, will provide
stimulus to the local and regional economies by creating construction jobs and supporting spin-off activity.

The new St. Joseph’s Regional Mental Health Care St. Thomas facility will be a forensic mental health-care facility built on the existing lands in St. Thomas. It will provide specialized inpatient and outpatient services, including assessment, treatment, outreach and support services to individuals with a mental illness who have come into significant contact with the criminal justice system.

The new St. Joseph’s Regional Mental Health Care London facility will be constructed adjacent to Parkwood Hospital in London. Its programs will accommodate inpatient and outpatient services for:
• adolescent psychiatry
• assessment
• dual diagnosis
• geriatric psychiatry
• mood and anxiety disorders
• psychosis

The two new facilities will better support staff and a recovery model of care for patients by creating healing environments, providing a neighbourhood and community setting which will allow for individual growth and skill acquirement and enable patients to return to community living more successfully.

The value of the contract with ITS in today’s dollars is approximately $830.5 million. When adjustments for anticipated inflation are made for the 30 year contract term, the contract value is $1.1 billion.

Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care are working with St. Joseph’s to build the hospitals, which will remain publicly owned, publicly controlled and publicly accountable.

Infrastructure Ontario is a Crown corporation dedicated to managing some of the province’s larger and more complex infrastructure renewal projects – ensuring they are built on time and on budget. As well, it is dedicated to providing the public sector and not-for-profit organizations with long-term financing to renew their infrastructure.

Visit http://www.infrastructureontario.ca and http://www.sjhc.london.on.ca/restructuring for more information.

“The new facilities are going to make such a difference to the people who work and receive care here,” Elgin-Middlesex-London MPP Steve Peters said. “I am very pleased to see this project, which has been
proposed for quite some time, take another important step to becoming a reality.”