Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC) received $17.5 million in funding—an investment aimed at ing existing medical services.
The KHSC encomes both Hotel Dieu and Kingston General Hospital (KGH), offering a wide range of services necessary for ing Kingston and broader Southeastern Ontario communities.
In an interview with The Journal, Jason Hann, KHSC’s executive vice president, patient care and chief nursing executive & regional vice president of cancer care, stressed the importance of the Centre’s role in providing care to this broader population.
“As an organization, we’re Southeastern Ontario’s hub for complex, acute and specialty care. With this, we’re a leading research and teaching hospital and we provide vital services to over 650,000 people from southeastern Ontario, as far north as James Bay in Northern Ontario,” Hann said.
Hann emphasized KHSC is a particularly important health service as they provide specialized services which aren’t available at other hospitals in the area.
“We offer advanced medical care, which is not available in our local communities. Some examples would be heart surgery, brain surgery, radiation therapy for cancer and advanced imaging, which includes CAT scans, MRIs, and vascular imaging. We’re [KHSC] the only hospital in the region that can provide that care,” Hann said.
The $17.5 million in funding for KHSC has been divided amongst four main areas, the biggest of which is $9.7 million from the Growth and Efficiency Model (GEM). GEM provides funding based on how well an organization is running, with more efficiently run organizations getting more in funding.
Hann detailed the steps KHSC took to secure the funding and highlighted the key issues it aims to address.
“What we’ve demonstrated is that we’ve grown, increasing our volume and providing more care, but we’ve been able to do that while keeping our costs down, so we’re efficient. This money helps the increasing volumes and the cost of inflation,” Hann said.
Another $1.4 million will be used to fund KHSC’s cardiac program, allowing them to “increase our number of cardiac beds in our cardiac intensive care unit” as well as increase the amount of “critical care beds as well as in-patient beds.”
Another $2.6 million will be used to fund MRI and CAT imaging, aimed at reducing wait times for these scans.
These funds come alongside another $3.8 million being put towards infrastructure needs such as general upkeep, elevator repairs, and masonry work.
The funding will additionally allow KHSC to focus on the research and training aspect of KHSC.
“KHSC plays a significant role in educating healthcare professionals. We train thousands of students annually, from nurses, allied health professionals, medical students, and hundreds of researchers that are dedicated to making groundbreaking advancements in healthcare,” Hann said.
Looking ahead, Hann recognizes the potential challenges posed by Canada’s aging population and aims to address them through ongoing growth and an expansion of KHSC’s facilities.
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