Tucking his prepared speech away, unused, into his suit jacket pocket, Joe Drago offered an off-the-cuff history lesson to those attending the official opening of Sudbury Regional Hospital’s new one-site location Aug. 12.

Among the roughly 200 people attending the ceremony held under a tent beside the hospital’s South Tower was Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, who cut the ribbon on the new facility along with local politicians and health-care leaders.

Drago, who recently retired as the chair of the Sudbury Regional Hospital Foundation, said it is important for newer health care leaders to know how the city’s hospitals were merged, and how the one-site hospital came into existence.

“I think the past is important for your future, and if you don’t think of your past, I don’t think you have a successful future,” he said. “So I say to the new people here, don’t forget where we came from.”

He said he was serving on the Memorial Hospital board in the 1980s when the idea of hospital mergers first came about. Eventually, a committee looking into the idea was formed, and Drago was elected the chair.

AGreater Sudbury Mayor John Rodriguez, Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and former Sudbury Regional Hospital Foundation chair Joe Drago help cut the ribbon at the official opening of Sudbury Regional Hospital Aug. 12. Photo by Heidi Ulrichsen.

“Every time we got to a stage where we thought we were going to make it to a made-in-Sudbury solution, something happened,” he said.

“We had a language issue, we had a religious issue, or we had the issue that abortions were being done in one of our institutions. We couldn’t get it together. So we brought in valuable resources, not only from our community, but from Canada and even from the United States.

“And ladies and gentlemen, we couldn’t do it. So the higher-ups came and said ‘you’re going to have one board. Do it.’ We put several people together from each of the boards, and we struck a board.”

Those planning the one-site hospital project had one goal in mind, and that was “very fine health care for the community,” he said.

Drago said he thinks that goal has been met. The project was riddled with cost overruns and construction delays, and the hospital is still facing problems.

In total, the one-site hospital project cost about $362 million. The first phase of the project, which took place in the late 1990s and early 2000s, cost $137 million. The second phase of the project, which began in March 2007, cost $225 million.

All of the hospital’s services have been provided from the one-site hospital since late March.

McGuinty told those attending the ceremony that he loves how people in northern Ontario have big dreams, with the one-site hospital being an example of one of their dreams.

“Your bigger and better hospital means better health care in modern, well-equipped place,” he said.

“It means when your mom needs an MRI, she can get one with the latest technology. It means when your dad needs cardiac care, you can have tests done more quickly.

It means when your child needs care for an allergic reaction right away, she can be seen in a brand-new emergency room.”

During his speech, Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci pointed to a place where a hole was left in the ground when construction on the hospital project was stalled for a number of years.

“We pleaded with the previous government to fill the hole in, to build the building,” he said. “The hole was right there. We can never, ever forget that our voices weren’t heard.”

He said when the Liberals were in opposition, they promised construction on the project would resume if they won the election, and they made good on that promise.

McGuinty also spoke with members of the media after the ceremony.

He was asked about the government’s response to the problems caused by high numbers of alternate level of care (ALC) patients occupying beds at the hospital.

The new one-site hospital was built without capacity for ALC patients. About 100 ALC patients are currently housed at the former Memorial Hospital site, although this facility is due to close early next year.

According to the hospital’s website, the hospital itself is currently housing 85 ALC patients.

“We’ve had a long-term strategy in place for some time now,” McGuinty said.

“We recognize (ALC patients are) an issue in a number of communities, including here in Sudbury. We’ve provided temporary support through funding the spaces at Memorial. We’ve got a long-term plan to put in new long-term care beds.

“We’ve received some excellent co-operation and advice from a steering committee based in the community, and we look forward to continuing to work with them.”

When asked if the province might consider keeping the ALC facility at the Memorial site open beyond the beginning of 2011, McGuinty listed a number of other ways in which the province is alleviating the ALC crisis, such as home care and additional funding for emergency rooms.

McGuinty was also asked during the media conference about a report released recently by Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin.

The report criticizes the Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant Local Health Integration Network for holding in-camera meetings when discussing plans to close local emergency rooms.

It said the LHIN adopted an “illegal” bylaw which allowed them to meet about the issue behind closed doors for “educational” purposes.

Marin said this same bylaw is being passed by LHINs right across the province.

McGuinty said he welcomes Marin’s report, saying that the ombudsman’s point that the public should be able to watch the LHINs’ deliberations “makes good sense.”

He said LHINs are relatively new in the province, and the government continues to find ways to improve the way they function.