The new Francophone Health Centre will reunite staff under one roof and provide more services.
Construction began today on the new Center de santé communautaire de Timmins (CSC Timmins) at 120 Kent Ave. Once completed, all of the organization's medical and mental health services will once again be consolidated into one of his facilities.
“I must admit that I have not slept much over the past 24 hours due to anticipation. In fact, I never thought this day would come,” said CSC Executive Director Michelle Stevens. “It's great to see so much support. The community is so excited.”
The previous building was the former École Catholic Saint-Charles, which was demolished in 2022.
The clinic is currently operating out of Timmins Square, with administrative staff working from an office on Wilson Avenue until the new facility is completed.
The state is contributing more than $16 million for the new facility, including $1.1 million for initial planning work and $15.6 million for construction.
This will expand the services offered, including early childhood education, physiotherapy and improved accessibility. Medical students will also be trained on-site, working alongside family doctors.
Mayor Michelle Boileaux said the CSC Timmins facility will be of great importance to the community going forward.
“All this means for the community is improved access to care,” she said, “It removes the barriers to better understanding and support.”
Karine Briand, CSC board chair, said everyone is looking forward to having a permanent home.
“I came on board in 2020, but this project has been years and years in the making, and I'm fortunate to be in the final stages where we can bring it to life,” she said. “We have drawings and a vision for what it will look like, and we have kind of a beginning and an end where we can move in.”
With more space, the organization will be able to fill more positions and offer more to the Francophone community, she said.
“It's going to be a lot of fun having everyone under one roof,” she said. “We have some job listings that we can't apply to because we don't have the space, so we're going to be able to fill those positions and serve our community at a higher capacity.”
George Pirie, MP for Timmins, and Nolan Quinn, MP for Stormont, Dundas and South Glengarry and assistant to the Minister for Health, attended the event and spoke about access to health and education. talked about the importance of
“It's essential for the community,” Quinn says. “Ontario is a bilingual province, so ensuring that our ageing population has access to appropriate care in their language of choice and also cultural care for their particular culture is really important because people need to feel comfortable navigating the health care system.”
He said centres like the one being built in Timmins are crucial to keeping health-care workers in the community.
“A brand new facility will make it easier to attract new doctors,” he added.
Mr Pirie said the event was a great sign for the community.
“Having access to medical services in your language of choice is just a fantastic thing. It's great for the city of Timmins,” Pirie said. “It's great for our medical students here to be able to practise medicine in their language of choice and it's a really important element for the Ontario government to be able to provide that.”
The project is expected to be completed in May 2025. The exterior of the building is expected to be completed by October, with interior work to be completed over the winter.
“I'm sure the team is really excited to work together, get to know each other and be able to just drop in and ask questions in person,” Briand said.
Amanda rabk, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, TimminsToday.com
