BY NORM TOLLINSKY

A 41-year wait for a new hospital in the Town of Mattawa has finally come to an end.
The new facility, replacing portable units in use since 1967, has 16 acute care beds, three complex continuing care beds, an emergency room, a lab and basic diagnostic equipment, including X-ray, ECG and ultrasound machines. It also accommodates several ambulatory care clinics and provides physiotherapy, mental health and other community services.

The community made do with portable units following a fire that destroyed the town’s hospital in 1966. The Ministry of Health at the time promised that the portables would be replaced by a permanent structure within 10 years, but four decades came and went before the new hospital began to take shape.

The sleek, 43,000-square foot building is designed to promote healing, said hospital CEO Guy Chartrand. “Healing is part medical, but also part environmental and spiritual. All of the patient rooms are facing the mountain and the river, so it’s a beautiful site.”
Over time, Chartrand would like to see all six physicians in the community move to the hospital site to centralize health-care services in one location. The goal, he said, “is to create the health-care system of the future for Mattawa.

“The idea would be to support physicians from an administrative perspective, so they can focus on what they do best.”

The price tag for the new hospital, including equipment, was $21 million, $3.8 million of which was raised within the community.

The facility serves the 6,000 people living in the hospital’s catchment area, including the 2,500 residents of Mattawa. North Bay General, 65 kilometres to the west, provides surgical, obstetric and other specialized services.

According to Chartrand, smaller hospitals like Mattawa’s are ideal for post surgery convalescence and play an important role in relieving pressure on the northeast’s four large hospitals, which are struggling to cope with an alternate level of care crisis.

The Mattawa Hospital was originally established in 1878 when three nuns from the order now known as the Sisters of Charity opened a small, five-bed hospital to meet the needs of the community. A two-storey hospital built in 1885 was destroyed by fire in 1901, but the community rallied to rebuild it the following year. The hospital, including a new wing added in 1927, served the community until 1966, when fire once again reduced it to ashes.