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May 2025: "Ottawa looks to off-load costly, seldom-used mobile hospitals bought for the pandemic"

Anyone other then me think its needed to keep this? Ukraine has shown we would need to massively scale up our medical and casualty care. Having more deployable hospitals will be needed, perhaps instead of trying to scrap or sell, we need to train medical staff then redeploy it annually to a new rural area to help give medical care to isolated communities? This maintains CAF medical capabilities and helps areas of the country with little to no medical resources
 
This is not a deployable hospital. The time to set up / tear down mean it's not useful from a tactical care perspective in a peer or near peer conflict.

Fine for FOB warfare where you're setting up semi permanent facilities, not fine when mobility is necessary.
 
MilEME09 said:
Anyone other then me think its needed to keep this? Ukraine has shown we would need to massively scale up our medical and casualty care. Having more deployable hospitals will be needed, …
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The CAF already has WeatherHaven based hospitals, and health services has determined these are not a great fit for war fighting.
 
McG said:
The CAF already has WeatherHaven based hospitals, and health services has determined these are not a great fit for war fighting.
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I would not see them as a front line hospital, more like a third line, but if CFHS has determined they have little value to us then so be it. Pack it up, and donate it or sell it to someone who ran use it.
 
MilEME09 said:
Anyone other then me think its needed to keep this? Ukraine has shown we would need to massively scale up our medical and casualty care. Having more deployable hospitals will be needed, perhaps instead of trying to scrap or sell, we need to train medical staff then redeploy it annually to a new rural area to help give medical care to isolated communities? This maintains CAF medical capabilities and helps areas of the country with little to no medical resources
Click to expand...

The hospital equipment sets mobile health unit (MHU) as identified in the OP were not acquired for the CAF, nor did the CAF have input as to design or organization, nor were CAF pers involved during the brief, very limited deployment of these assets. The concept of operation was:

Government of Canada provides Mobile Health Units to assist Ontario with COVID-19 response - Canada.ca

Throughout its response to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of Canada has been in regular contact with provinces and territories to assess the needs of regions hardest hit by the pandemic’s resurgence and to provide support that will help protect the health and safety of...
www.canada.ca www.canada.ca
To prepare for possible COVID-19 case surges, in April 2020, Public Services and Procurement Canada established contracts with Weatherhaven Global Resources Ltd. and SNC-Lavalin PAE Inc. to design, manage and deploy Mobile Health Units, as required.

The two units being deployed are being provided by Weatherhaven Global Resources. These units were tested in a pre-deployment exercise in Brockville, ON in December 2020.
Click to expand...

weatherhaven.com

Weatherhaven - Coronavirus disease (COVID-19

From mobile clinics to field hospitals, Weatherhaven provides medical shelter solutions that meet the guidelines and standards for the use of foreign field hospitals, set by organizations like the World Health Organization and the United Nations.
weatherhaven.com weatherhaven.com
The MHU is a transportable 100-bed Health Care Facility specifically designed for respiratory care and the treatment of COVID-19.
Click to expand...

 
As for "field hospitals" in Canada, ready to deploy for disasters. . .

www.samaritanspurse.ca

Emergency Field Hospital Lands in Canada - Samaritan's Purse Canada

Early Tuesday morning, March 19, the Samaritan’s Purse 757 cargo plane touched down in Calgary, Alberta, loaded with the supplies to deploy an Emergency Field Hospital anywhere in the world. A few minutes later, the Samaritan’s Purse DC-8 landed with more equipment. Positioning this hospital in...
www.samaritanspurse.ca www.samaritanspurse.ca
 
The hospitals could be donated to the First Nations up north. They could set them up and run them themselves.

Or a more privatized approach.

Looking at at the obscene amounts of money the government is paying hotels to house migrants and asylum seekers, someone could buy and set up these hospitals, hire some doctors, and charge the government obscene amounts of money to administer our guests health needs.
 
Jarnhamar said:
The hospitals could be donated to the First Nations up north. They could set them up and run them themselves.
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Most hospitals on FNs are built & run by the feds, with most nurses federal employees, so someone would have to “convince” Indigenous Services Canada to take the units on. I don’t know if ISC was specifically asked, but MSM is saying nobody wanted the orphan infrastructure.
Jarnhamar said:
Or a more privatized approach.

Looking at at the obscene amounts of money the government is paying hotels to house migrants and asylum seekers, someone could buy and set up these hospitals, hire some doctors, and charge the government obscene amounts of money to administer our guests health needs.
Click to expand...
Again, the cynic in me wonders if this’ll end up happening, for sure.
 
I don’t know anything about these units. Are they too cumbersome to be used by DART?
 
Jarnhamar said:
The hospitals could be donated to the First Nations up north. They could set them up and run them themselves.

Or a more privatized approach.

Looking at at the obscene amounts of money the government is paying hotels to house migrants and asylum seekers, someone could buy and set up these hospitals, hire some doctors, and charge the government obscene amounts of money to administer our guests health needs.
Click to expand...
Bringing them, asylum seekers and migrants, up to speed on their vaccination status, to meet our standards, might be an idea as part of the plan.
 
Jarnhamar said:
The hospitals could be donated to the First Nations up north. They could set them up and run them themselves.

Or a more privatized approach.

Looking at at the obscene amounts of money the government is paying hotels to house migrants and asylum seekers, someone could buy and set up these hospitals, hire some doctors, and charge the government obscene amounts of money to administer our guests health needs.
Click to expand...

You have a rather jaundiced view of the health coverage provided to refugee claimants, but the reality is far from paying out "obscene" amounts of money. Such individuals fall under the Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP). Fee for service rates are most likely equivalent to rates set by the individual provincial health insurance plans (if not slightly less - as they used to be years ago when clinics I managed submitted invoices). They were not a good business line because the program was a slow payer (but so was the CAF). It may have improved since billings for the program are now done through Medavie Blue Cross. Refugee claimants have the the same problem as everyone else, finding a physician who will see them; actually, they have much more difficulty accessing comprehensive care.

Health care – Refugees - Canada.ca

Health care – Refugees
www.canada.ca www.canada.ca

Interim Federal Health Program: What is covered - Canada.ca

Interim Federal Health Program: What is covered
www.canada.ca www.canada.ca
 
The Bread Guy said:
Most hospitals on FNs are built & run by the feds, with most nurses federal employees, so someone would have to “convince” Indigenous Services Canada to take the units on. I don’t know if ISC was specifically asked, but MSM is saying nobody wanted the orphan infrastructure.
Click to expand...
They want to be seen as separate nations and involved in every government decision; they should become more self reliant.

The Bread Guy said:
Again, the cynic in me wonders if this’ll end up happening, for sure.
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If you run with this idea you should give me a 5% cut.

Fishbone Jones said:
Bringing them, asylum seekers and migrants, up to speed on their vaccination status, to meet our standards, might be an idea as part of the plan.
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We're obligated to take care of the people we let in knowing they can't fend for themselves.
 
Blackadder1916 said:
You have a rather jaundiced view of the health coverage provided to refugee claimants, but the reality is far from paying out "obscene" amounts of money.
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I'm certain they get free health care and don't pay a penny. They're overwhelming local resources though. These mobile hospitals could alleviate some of the strain. The government can fandangle some loopholes where medical staff get paid privately through a 3rd party. The government can pay obscene amounts of money for these services which means the company can pay medical staff ridiculous amounts to attract and retain them.



Blackadder1916 said:
Refugee claimants have the the same problem as everyone else, finding a physician who will see them; actually, they have much more difficulty accessing comprehensive care.
Click to expand...
Exactly. And more refugees mean more strain, it's not like we're going to stop taking on refugees. Let the government dump money into it to alleviate the strain a smidgen.
 
Hospital facilities are rarely designed for primary care, and that's the space governments at all levels need to invest in.

Simple first steps like interprovincial licensure by default, plus increased positions on medical schools are for residents (the latter particularly for foreign trained doctors) are significantly more important than weatherhaven or sprung shelters.

They're also less visible, and people have been conditioned to expect the edifice complex, that a new building is more important than the underlying capacity.

It would be like building new police stations without ensuring trained police, technical forensic experts, and admin and support staff are available to deliver policing services.
 
Jarnhamar said:
They want to be seen as separate nations and involved in every government decision; they should become more self reliant.
Click to expand...
All they would have to do is come up with a cadre of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, along with the regulatory colleges that govern them.

These 'hospitals' are 100-bed facilities. That's just slightly smaller than the hospital in our previous town that serviced about 65000 (plus seasonal tourists). I don't know any FN that is anywhere that size, let alone the northern ones. Unless things have changed, most FNTs have a nursing station that is a satellite of a federal 'zone' hospital.

Wherever they would go, they need to be staffed. Besides, they look like they'd be a bugger to heat at -40.
 
dapaterson said:
Hospital facilities are rarely designed for primary care, and that's the space governments at all levels need to invest in.

Simple first steps like interprovincial licensure by default, plus increased positions on medical schools are for residents (the latter particularly for foreign trained doctors) are significantly more important than weatherhaven or sprung shelters.

They're also less visible, and people have been conditioned to expect the edifice complex, that a new building is more important than the underlying capacity.

It would be like building new police stations without ensuring trained police, technical forensic experts, and admin and support staff are available to deliver policing services.
Click to expand...

Meanwhile, in BC, they're pushing for police in the hospitals.

I know surgeons, as well as nurses and other staff, who've been assaulted by patients/ random interlopers with no consequences for the offenders.

Which is largely a 'leftie political problem', and if you say that in BC you risk alot ...

www.ctvnews.ca

Calls for police in hospitals to combat violent assaults on healthcare workers

After a string of high-profile attacks in hospitals, including a patient strangling a nurse unconscious at Vancouver General Hospital, the opposition B.C. Conservatives are calling for police in some healthcare institutions.
www.ctvnews.ca www.ctvnews.ca
 
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