Hospital partnership must be in best interest of Vaughan

Yorkregion.com
June 25, 2015

We’re feeling pretty good about the new deal hammered out earlier this month between the city and a private, not-for-profit group that will finally see Vaughan’s hospital project steamroll ahead.

On the same day The Citizen published an editorial urging the city to reach out and grab the olive branch extended to it by the Vaughan Health Campus of Care (VHCC), Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua announced at his annual gala that the parties have, in fact, struck a new deal.

What this means to Vaughan residents is all systems are go for proposals to be received from consortiums bidding to build the city’s first hospital. And Mackenzie Health, the organization overseeing the project, is confident it will hit an opening date sometime in 2019 for the Mackenzie Vaughan Hospital.

Vaughan’s citizens have every reason to believe the city and the VHCC will work together in the spirit of co-operation and good faith to develop complementary health-care services on the surplus lands around the hospital at Jane Street and Major Mackenzie Drive. Those services could include research and development facilities, an educational facility, a long-term care centre or a hospice, among other things.

It’s an exciting time, to be sure, and not just for the principals involved in the hospital project. There will be plenty of opportunities for citizens to get involved in fundraising the community’s portion of the hospital, estimated to be in the hundreds of millions. We expect to hear a lot more from the Mackenzie Health Foundation, the fundraising arm of the organization, in the coming months.

We extend our congratulations to Mayor Bevilacqua and his council, as well as VHCC chairman Michael DeGasperis and his board, for coming to the table determined to find a way to forge a lasting partnership and work together in the best interests of the people of Vaughan.