A building critics say will be the largest private surgical centre in Ontario, a place that will compete with public hospitals, is quietly taking shape in Richmond Hill.
Funded by a foundation linked to Dominion Bond Rating Service founder and philanthropist Walter Schroeder, the Schroeder Ambulatory Centre is a six-storey medical building on Leslie Street that wouldn’t seem out of place on any York Region hospital campus.
The Schroeder Centre isn’t a hospital, but if licensed by Ontario’s Health Ministry, thousands of surgeries a year could soon be done there, funded by public money.
That worries Michael Hurley, president of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, who said the Schroeder Centre would entice staff from nearby hospitals to work for a higher salary, worsening shortages and wait times at those hospitals.
Private surgical centres perform operations at a significantly higher cost, which means “Ontarians will be spending more for surgeries than they need to,” Hurley said.
Last May, the Progressive Conservative government passed Bill 60, Your Health Act, 2023, saying it was part of a plan to reduce surgery wait times. The bill allows the province to license private clinics to perform publicly-funded surgeries, including hip and knee replacements, as well as diagnostic imaging services.
In an interview, Hurley said the Schroeder Centre’s development in anticipation of a provincial license shows the government is committed to a policy direction that undermines universal health care by giving wealthy people better access at the expense of other Ontarians.
“I think they think about this (health care) as a market, not a service,” he said.
A recent statement from Mackenzie Health, which has hospitals in Vaughan and Richmond Hill, said discussions with the Schroeder Centre are underway to explore collaboration that will benefit those communities.
“Clearing the surgical backlog and reducing wait times for diagnostic and surgical procedures is a priority for all of us working in health care,” Mackenzie added on Oct. 31.
“We support solutions that add capacity to the system as long as they don’t compromise safety and quality, hospital operations or health human resources.”
Richmond Hill Mayor David West said the city welcomes the new facility.
West also said he expects, at a time when recruiting health care professionals has been a challenge, that the Schroeder Centre will work with Mackenzie Health “to ensure any staffing challenges can be addressed and all benefits to our residents maximized.”
Attempts to contact directors of the facility through the Schroeder Foundation, a charity founded by Walter Schroeder and his wife Maria, were unsuccessful.
The foundation created the Schroeder Ambulatory Centre Foundation, another charity which is funding the facility and owns the 5.52-acre property at 9355 Leslie St. (the real address is 20 Brodie Dr.).
It was a former owner, Atlas Healthcare, which started building a 13,434-square-metre, six-storey medical building on the site in 2015, envisioning a facility with operating rooms and stays for new mothers.
The project floundered, however. On Dec. 3, 2018, Atlas was placed into bankruptcy protection by a lender to which it owed around $81 million.
New owners restarted the project, then known as the Terra Hill Ambulatory Surgical and Medical Centre, and registered site plans with the city in 2021 and 2022 for additions totalling 5,763 square metres.
Last July 12, Terra Hill approached Richmond Hill city council with a complaint by Michael McConnell, treasurer of the Schroeder Foundation, asking for the project to be exempted from $500,000 in development charges.
“We plan to be the first orthopedic charitable organization operating without a public hospital license, which is something extremely special to have in Richmond Hill,” McConnell told councillors, adding the facility would likely have 300 to 400 employees and was part of the “future of healthcare reform.”
In a letter from NORR Architects and Engineers Limited, Valdemar Nickel, the firm’s development planning services manager, argued a full exemption was justified, “given the facility is a charitable operation and this exemption is required for the facility to be viable.”
The exemption request was denied.
Health Ministry spokesperson Hannah Jensen said the ministry can’t comment on the licensing process for the Schroeder Centre or when it might open.
Since the project hasn’t received capital funding from the ministry, “there are no capital milestones that need to be reported to the ministry,” she said by email on Nov. 1.
As part of the process, applicants must submit a staffing plan, “showing the relationships they have with existing healthcare providers, such as hospitals, in the region to ensure a sustainable staffing model,” Jensen said.
“We will continue to work collaboratively with our partners to build a more convenient, better-connected public healthcare system.”
Richmond Hill MPP Daisy Wai did not respond to requests for comment on the project.