Ontario Improving Access to Health Care for Children in Sudbury
NEO Kids and Family Program Receives Planning Grant from Province
January 19, 2018
Ontario is supporting Health Sciences North to plan an expansion of the children’s health centre in Sudbury, ensuring children and their families will have access to quality health care and social services closer to home.
Dr. Eric Hoskins, Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, and Glenn Thibeault, MPP for Sudbury, were at Health Sciences North today to announce that the province is providing a grant to help plan for the expansion of the NEO Kids and Family Program.
This project would allow patients who are currently receiving specialized children’s services from other health centres in Ontario to get the care they need closer to home. Support from the province will also help Health Sciences North to:
- Bring together paediatric outpatient health and social services at one site
- Deliver health promotion services with a focus on chronic diseases and risk factors impacting children
- Improve health care services and service delivery for local and Indigenous communities in the northeast
- Coordinate with other health care providers to help patients with advanced care needs.
Building and expanding hospitals is part of Ontario’s plan to create fairness and opportunity during this period of rapid economic change. The plan includes a higher minimum wage and better working conditions, free tuition for hundreds of thousands of students, easier access to affordable child care, and free prescription drugs for everyone under 25 through the biggest expansion of medicare in a generation.
- Ontario is providing a planning grant of up to $500,000 to help Health Sciences North with the expansion plan for the NEO Kids and Family Program.
- Planning grants help Ontario’s health care system respond to the needs of a growing population by enabling more sustainable, informed fiscal planning for communities.
- A planning grant provides resources for hospitals to work with their Local Health Integration Network and the province to ensure a project is of appropriate scope and scale.
- Planning grants provide funding for early planning stages only — a planning grant does not mean approval to build.
- Ontario is providing funding for over 2,000 additional beds and spaces across the province in 2017-18. This investment includes 16 additional beds at Health Sciences North to provide access to care and reduce wait times, whether in hospital, at home or in the community.
- Ontario is making the largest infrastructure investment in hospitals, schools, public transit, roads and bridges in the province’s history. To learn more about what’s happening in your community, go to Ontario.ca/BuildON.
“Our government is supporting Health Sciences North in their work to strengthen pediatric services for families throughout Northeastern Ontario. Ontario’s investment in Neo Kids’ plan to expand their delivery of high quality care will ensure more children can to receive the health care they need closer to home.”
“Today we take an important step to ensure that kids in Sudbury will have a healthier future. Easier to access care designed specifically for the youngest patients means families will have worry-free access to the care they need. It has been my pleasure to be involved with this project for a long time now, so I am very excited to get this first step underway.”
“Today’s announcement allows us to proceed with planning for what the physical expansion of this hospital could look like and more importantly, what new services may be introduced for kids and youth to improve patient care.”
Dominic Giroux
President and Chief Executive Officer, Health Sciences North
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