New HDGH rehab centre aims to transform outpatient care

Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare is fundraising for a multi-million-dollar addition that will not receive government funding. CTV Windsor’s Ricardo Veneza reports.

Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare (HDGH) is expanding its campus and has kicked off a campaign to fund the new facility

The hospital is building out a multi-million-dollar addition to its campus focused on its rehabilitation suite of services, and the project is being undertaken without any government funding.

The campaign got off to a big money start on Wednesday with the Toldo Foundation donating $1.5-milliond toward the $8.3-million project.

“This outpatient program is really a game changing opportunity for people who have come through perhaps catastrophic events, who’ve been hospitalized due to injuries, whether it be an amputation, a brain injury or a spinal cord injury,” said HDGH President and CEO, Bill Marra.

The newly named Toldo Outpatient Rehabilitation Centre is well under construction and will support over 15,000 patient visits the program sees every year.

With new features like exercise equipment, walking track, direct patient drop off, therapy rooms, and a simulated kitchen and bathroom to help patients restore their motor movements and confidence at home.

Something Marra says is part of the core promise of HDGH, addressing rehabilitation and mental health.

“This is the biggest and most significant rehab center of its kind in the region. Our catchment area will go as far as Chatham-Kent. We have programs and services that bring people into them all over Ontario,” he said.

Paralympic champion Danielle Campo knows the rehab services all too well, having received care for her surprise muscular dystrophy diagnosis at the hospital.

Now chairing the campaign, she says the state-of-the-art centre will mean the world to those on their own journey of recovery.

“You always drive into this parking lot, and you remember when, you know, even my husband and I had to take a little deep breath saying. Whew. This was such a time. And you people can’t understand how important this outpatient center will be,” said Campo.

Marra is hopeful the doors to the centre can open to provide services as soon as this fall.

“The growth in demand for services is happening organically with an aging population, with more people seeking services and the medical system being as busy as it is,” he said.