SHERBROOKE — Municipality of the District of St. Mary’s council recently received an update on the status of a plan for a new St. Mary’s Memorial Hospital (SMMH).
Lyndsay Stevens, SMMH site lead health services manager, and Andrew Heighton, Nova Scotia Health (NSH) Eastern Zone director of rural integrated health, made a presentation during council’s committee of the whole meeting on Nov. 20.
“The demand is not slowing down, it’s growing,” Heighton said, noting the patient and medical needs of the area are outgrowing the capacity of Sherbrooke’s only hospital.
Stevens added, “We’ve outgrown our space and could provide more opportunities to the community if we had more.”
When it comes to the potential of renovating the aging facility, which was built in 1949, Heighton pointed out, “There is the matter of dealing with asbestos and other things.”
Asking council if there are any potential locations, Stevens said provincial officials are working on securing land to build a new hospital, with the start of construction coming as soon as 2027.
“There is an area marked off for a possible hospital,” Warden James Fuller told the presenters, which would be a part of a neighbourhood concept plan for a piece of municipal land on Old Road Hill.
Heighton said the hope is to build a new hospital close to the location of a proposed new nursing home in Sherbrooke.
Fuller noted that is a “very strong possibility,” considering the long-term care facility will likely be located in the proposed Old Road Hill neighbourhood concept plan.
Despite an increased demand on emergency room (ER) services at SMMH, Stevens noted, “We have only had one sick call over night when we didn’t have an RN on site.”
Heighton added that, of the Level 4 hospitals in Nova Scotia, “only St. Mary’s and Sacred Heart [hospital] in Chéticamp, have never had a six-hour closure. Ever.”
SMMH has two physicians who provide consistent coverage in the office and ER, with no closures. There is a family practice nurse in the medical clinic and two administrative workers in the doctors’ office area.
Heighton noted it might take two doctors, or maybe more, to replace those physicians when they retire, considering they care for patients in their offices and the ER.
“Is there a plan to replace those doctors? We need to look ahead and at recruitment,” he offered.
With an increase in staff over the past 12 to 24 months, SMMH has eight full-time registered nurses (RNs), which includes one clinical lead; one half-time RN; four casual RNs; six full-time licensed practical nurses, two casual part-time licensed practical nurses, two full-time continuing care assistants (CCAs) and one casual CCA.
“Ninety per cent of the nurses are under 40, and live locally in our municipality,” Stevens said, noting that in the past year SMMH provided two recent nursing graduates with a $40,000 bursary, tax-free with full receipts – with a return of four years’ service, which is “a start to growing our own nurses’ [pool] and keeping them locally.”
Warden Fuller asked Heighton if there was a plan in place to entice new physicians, nurses and other hospital workers to the region, noting that one nearby community hospital offered $100,000 for physician recruitment.
“We could never compete with that,” Fuller said.
Heighton explained that there are other offers available to the municipality, including one that provides doctors who want to establish a practice outside the Central Zone of the province up to $125,000 in incentives over five years.
He also outlined the Nova North Residency Program (NNRA), which brought in 16 first- and second-year medical residents to the Guysborough area, where they met community members, had supper and were taken on a hospital tour.
“It was foundation-led, supported by the municipality,” Heighton said, noting NSH was also involved.
He added, of doing something similar in St. Mary’s if they visit the community in the spring season, “We can take them fishing, show them the area, give them a choice of five things to do, etc.”
Council and municipal staff agreed with that potential measure.
“We can show them what we have here – a lifestyle,” Councillor Scott Beaver said.
With the potential of a new hospital, along with staff increases, Heighton turned the discussion to housing, with municipal officials outlining the variety of options planned as part of its neighbourhood concept plan.
Council offered to do what it can to assist Heighton and Stevens in their efforts to advocate for a new hospital, saying it would gladly write letters of support, including to provincial government and NSH officials, in which they would note the availability of municipal land to construct the facility.
“Replacing the aging building we have now with an updated and modern expanded facility will cement St. Mary’s reputation as a leading provider of quality healthcare,” Fuller said.
Heighton, expressing their appreciation for the offer of assistance from council, offered, “If we have this land, it would take that out of the equation … for NS Health and the government.”
He added, “There are so many good things; no closures, lots of great staff. Many rural hospitals like this don’t have that.”
