$8.5M a welcome ‘shock’ to Geraldton hospital CEO

GREENSTONE — News of $8.5 million in funding for renovations plus annual funding for nurse practitioners at Geraldton District Hospital came from out of the blue to Darryl Galusha.

“I was in shock,” Galusha, the hospital’s chief executive officer, said the day after Premier Doug Ford made the surprise announcement at an unrelated media event along Highway 584.

“I was actually in shock,” Galusha restated. “I was very emotional.

“I know what this means to the community. I know what this means to staff.”

In a media event on Wednesday, to mark progress in upgrading Highway 584 north of Geraldton, Ford disclosed that he had just taken a tour of the hospital and been reminded of the need for renovations funding.

“They asked for 8.5 million,” Ford told reporters. “The first thing I did when I hopped in the car, I called my office and said ‘Make that 8.5 million happen, and make it happen immediately.’”

The province will also fund the hospital’s innovative program of nurse practitioners working with physicians in the emergency department, he said.

That commitment amounts to about $500,000 annually, Ford said, “and we’re going to make that happen as well.”

Hospital board chair Eric Pietsch said the renovations “include converting six past hospital bedrooms back into long-term care rooms, as well as developing a currently undeveloped portion of the hospital of 10,000 square feet with a new lab, a new outpatient facility and a CT scanner.”

The premier’s commitment follows a recent $1.3-million donation from Greenstone Gold Mine owner Equinox Gold, Pietsch said.

Ford said during the hospital tour “that he was going to push for this project and that he was excited about it,” Pietsch said.

“And then within minutes of leaving, he called me and said he'd made some phone calls and that he was going to do his best to make it happen.”

Pietsch said the renovations are very important as activity at the gold mine grows and draws more people to the area – and as mining in the Ring of Fire north of Greenstone moves closer to reality.

“Being the only hospital in the region, having us set up and ready to provide service to both our residents and people who are passing through is very important to us,” he said.

The hospital has pioneered in the use of nurse practitioners to improve health-care delivery, said Pietsch, who is also a member of Greenstone municipal council.

“Geraldton District Hospital was the first hospital in the province that integrated nurse practitioners into the emergency room to work alongside of the doctors,” he explained.

“The catalyst behind that was the majority of our doctors are locums. So having a nurse practitioner with the locum allows that continuity of care for the patients who do come in regularly for regular checkups or what have you, for services that we provide.

“Currently we’re providing funding from our own base budget to the nurse practitioners for the two positions that we have, and we were running a deficit as a result.”

Pietsch’s work was instrumental in obtaining the extra funding, Galusha said, “but it was many hands that made this happen. Really, kudos to everyone.”