Brampton declared a health-care emergency in January 2020.
Six years later, construction on our second hospital is finally beginning. The new Peel Memorial will add up to 250 post-acute beds, a 24-hour emergency care centre, dialysis and expanded outpatient services.
That is important progress—but it will not close Brampton’s health-care gap by itself. In fact, by the time it opens, we will have actually fallen behind our present bed to population ratio. A classic One Step Forward, Two Steps Back situation. But, I will not argue it hasn’t at least been One Step Forward.
Post-acute beds help patients recover and free capacity at Brampton Civic. They are not a substitute for the acute-care beds, operating rooms, critical care and specialized services Brampton will need as our population continues to grow.
Nor is health-care capacity measured only in hospital beds.
It means being able to find a family doctor. It means receiving urgent care without going to an emergency department. It means supporting seniors before a manageable condition becomes a crisis. It means having rehabilitation, mental-health, diagnostic and community-care services close to home.
Health care is primarily a provincial responsibility. But “that is not our jurisdiction” cannot be an excuse for municipal inaction. Other municipalities have shown what cities can do.
Vaughan used a dedicated, separately reported levy to purchase and prepare land for its hospital. Once the commitment was paid, the levy ended. Brampton had a levy, cancelled by Mayor Brown early in his tenure, only to see it returned through Council.
Kingston has funded existing primary-care clinics to expand their patient rosters.
Clarington matches municipal funding with contributions from local clinics. Its program has already attracted four family doctors, each committed to practising locally for at least five years and accepting at least 1,000 patients.
Ajax used hospital land and an accelerated provincial partnership to build 320 long-term-care beds beside Lakeridge Health, helping move patients into the appropriate level of care and relieve pressure on hospital beds.
Brampton can learn from all of them.
THE PLAN — IN BRIEF
• Finish Brampton’s second hospital and publicly track every major construction, funding and operating milestone.
• Protect the City’s $125-million commitment, disclose the hospital reserve balance annually and end the existing levy once that commitment has been met.
• Secure a firm provincial commitment to fund the staff and services necessary to operate Peel Memorial fully. A completed building without funded nurses, doctors and services is not health-care capacity. It’s a headline and a photo op, but its not health care.
• Begin the business case for Brampton’s third hospital now—not after Peel Memorial opens. Identify and protect a site, complete the planning and servicing work, and formally seek approval for a full-service acute-care hospital. Study the viability of a “Third Hospital Levy” now, so that it can be properly planned and implemented with the least impact on property taxes.
• Create a Brampton Primary Care Expansion Program, modelled on programs in Kingston and Clarington, to help established clinics add doctors, nurse practitioners, examination rooms and new patients. Urgent Care and Emergency Rooms need relief, and this can provide it.
• Tie every municipal incentive to measurable results: minimum years of local service, minimum numbers of newly attached patients and repayment requirements if commitments are not honoured.
• Build a permanent partnership among the City, TMU’s School of Medicine, William Osler Health System, Peel Region and community-care providers to recruit, train and retain health-care professionals in Brampton.
• Expand TMU’s network of integrated teaching clinics throughout Brampton, using municipal buildings or surplus public land where appropriate. Its first two clinics can connect as many as 14,000 residents to primary care. We should treat them as the beginning of a city-wide network.
• Identify neighbourhoods with the greatest shortage of primary care and prioritize clinics in those communities instead of waiting for the market to decide where services appear.
• Fast-track planning approvals for medical clinics, diagnostic facilities, long-term care, hospice care and other essential health infrastructure.
• Work with Peel Region and the Province to expand adult day programs, respite care, dementia supports, home care and long-term-care capacity—keeping seniors healthier and reducing avoidable hospital admissions.
• Publish a public Health-Care Capacity Dashboard tracking hospital construction, funded beds, primary-care attachment, emergency pressures and progress toward a third hospital.
HOW WE APPLY CITY RESOURCES
We already collect a dedicated hospital levy. We already own land and buildings. We already fund economic development, institutional partnerships and projects intended to attract jobs and investment.
We should audit the City’s property portfolio for potential hospital, clinic and community-care sites. I can think of a few properties, like 8 Rutherford Road South, where the City owns excess and unused land. An audit could reveal several high priority areas, and the excess land the City could dedict to the solution.
We should use existing economic-development and capital reserves to establish a time-limited primary-care expansion fund. We should require matching contributions from clinics, institutions, employers and foundations wherever practical.
Most importantly, we should rank health-care capacity ahead of discretionary events, vanity projects and lower-priority spending.
The City cannot replace the Province. But, it can certainly arrive at Queen’s Park with protected land, completed studies, committed local funding, institutional partners and a project ready to build.
That is how Vaughan secured a hospital.
That is how other municipalities are attracting doctors.
And that is how Brampton stops treating health care as an annual lobbying slogan and starts treating it as essential infrastructure.
Four years. One city. Let’s build.
