Partnership helping health care in the region

The University of Windsor and GreenShield have partnered up with a goal of improving health and wellbeing in the region. CTV Windsor’s Bob Bellacicco explains.

The university renamed Windsor Hall to Greenshield Hall Friday morning to showcase a partnership between the two organizations.

“It’s been a long time in the works,” said University of Windsor president J.J. McMurtry. “It’s also the beginning of a relationship and I think Greenshield and the University of Windsor have a lot more work to do working together to build this community and to provide healthcare for the population of Windsor-Essex.

Nine months ago, a partnership was formed between the University of Windsor, Greenshield Canada and Hotel Dieu Grace Health Care with $2.5 million earmarked over three years to help underserved residents.

According to Greenshield President Zahid Salman, the partnership has three workstreams including the setting up of a primary care clinic in the city focused on residents who don’t have a family doctor.

Salman says the hope, over time, is to get approval for multiple clinics in the region and connect 54,000 people.

“It’ll serve mainly the university population, staff and students to start and we’ll get some learnings and then we want to take it out broader into the community.” Salman said. “And it’s a model that we can take beyond Windsor-Essex over time as well.”

In anticipation of upcoming government grant applications, Salman says they are preparing to position themselves for funding.

Recent government funding in the region will help close to 18,000 unattached people in Windsor-Essex County.

“It’s dovetailing very well with the provincial ambition of getting 100 per cent primary care coverage for all Ontarians by 2029,” said Windsor-Tecumseh MPP Andrew Dowie.

He points out, while students are going through a growing number of medical schools, it is important to leverage every health care professional available to deliver primary care.

“Making sure their skill set helps our health, our personal health improve,” he said.

McMurtry says the partnership is also has a big focus on mental health.

“There’s a couple of things in the works that I can’t talk about but specifically we’re releasing a series of five modules that will be available to help people work through mental health in the workplace.” McMurtry said. “We’re building really innovative new solutions to health care problems, specifically mental health, and providing digital solutions to the populations so health care continues to be provided in an affordable and accessible way.”

Salman adds, “We can help introduce it to some of our clients and really improve psychological safety in the workplace.”

Salman says mental health research is the other workstream in the partnership.

“Which will be focused on equity-based care for populations who may be a bit more hesitant to seek out care themselves,” he said.