Vic Fedeli came with cheque in hand Friday at the North Bay Regional Health Centre.
The cheque worth $1,875,700 is goiing towards COVID-19 related reimbursements at the North Bay Regional Health Centre.
"The North Bay Regional Health Centre has been on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic and our government is using every tool at our disposal to support them," said Vic Fedeli, MPP for Nipissing.
Fedeli says he is please to be able to hand out the funding to the local Health Centre.
"Hospitals like the one here in North Bay had extraordinary costs each and every quarter to supply personal protective equipment and other extra costs so each quarter we have been providing money, last quarter was $1.8 million in additional dollars to the budget just today's announcement is a further $1.9 million that is just to help pay them back for the money they used out of their operating budgets and we also increased our operating budget by $2.4 million," said Fedeli.
"Our health care is so important; there is nothing more important than the safety of our families."
Michael Lowe, interim chair of the North Bay Regional Health Centre's board of directors says the funding gives the hospital some financial stability.
"We have been incurring costs running the assessment centre, all the extra work that is required when we had COVID-19 patients in terms of caring for them, isolating them, having the staff so that will obviously relieve financial pressures in that regard," said Lowe.
In March 2020, the Ontario government announced an additional investment of $571.9 million to reimburse hospitals for COVID-19 expenses incurred during the first wave of the pandemic.
Since then, the government has continued to reimburse hospitals for various COVID-19 expenses, including those related to vaccine delivery, a range of health human resources initiatives, and minor capital costs to operationalize beds targeted for COVID-19 patients.
