THUNDER BAY — The president of Lakehead University says she's excited about the potential benefits of a major new collaboration involving LU's campus in Orillia and that city's Soldiers' Memorial Hospital.
Multiple steps are still required, and it will be years before the facility is built, but Lakehead's southern Ontario campus has been chosen as the preferred site of a new hospital to serve a region with over 400,000 people.
"There's a long history of universities and hospitals working together, and there's really positive synergies that can happen when that is the case. There's opportunities for research partnerships, for us to develop new programming in Orillia in health and health-related fields, opportunities for our students to have co-op placements and work-integrated learning opportunities," Gillian Siddall told Newswatch on Wednesday.
Orillia Soldiers' Memorial Hospital, a 213-bed facility, has been seeking a site for a new and larger facility for the past six years, and recently learned it had received a $3 million capital planning grant from the Ontario government.
Siddall attended the announcement at the LU campus in Orillia.
An independent task force with broad community representation helped to evaluate the candidate properties, and supported the selection of a parcel of land on the south side of the campus.
Siddall said the university and the hospital have developed a close working relationship since the Orillia campus opened in 2006, and that "this would just be building on that wonderful partnership that we already have."
In 2023, the two institutions signed a memorandum of understanding formalizing their collaboration.
It committed them to discussing academic and non-academic program development, scholarly and health-related projects and research, and joint long-term planning, including for the sharing of human and capital resources.
"Lakehead University is committed to working with the communities we serve to help shape a brighter future through strengthened services and opportunities that open doors for students and future generations to thrive," Siddall said.
Carmine Stump, the CEO of Orillia Soldiers' Memorial Hospital, said "Becoming next door neighbours would create infinite possibilities to advance partnerships and progress for decades to come."
Siddall believes having a hospital on the Orillia campus may also open new doors for students studying at the Thunder Bay campus.
"We have a number of health programs here, including nursing. So there would be opportunities for our students to have placements at the hospital, I would think. And, of course, we have psychology and social work, and we may be growing programs there."
She said it hasn't been determined yet whether the hospital would lease land from Lakehead or purchase it.
Among other steps, the hospital must still conduct a site assessment, and provincial government approvals are required, but Jill Dunlop, ministers of Emergency Preparedness and Response and the MPP for the Orillia area, described the selection of the university campus as the preferred site as "an exciting and significant step forward."
Siddall noted that In Thunder Bay, Lakehead continues to maintain a close relationship with NOSM (Northern Ontario School of Medicine) University and with Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.
