A lead physician and his wife will soon ask Quinte West council to reconsider selling a vacant office building at 149 North Murray Street in Trenton. Jean Kaladeen is the wife of Dr. Stephen Kaladeen (has been a doctor for 34 years in Trenton) and is executive director of Hastings County Medical Associates which currently has 10 doctors as members, who have a roster of about 22,000 patients.
Kaladeen says council’s plan to sell a building originally meant to house medical professionals at a $200,000 plus loss is wrong-headed as it will make it very hard to attract new doctors.
“There’s no more space so that’s very, very difficult. With the best of intentions our community giving $100,000 of incentive money … it’s not enough if we have nowhere to put them. And there’s nowhere to put them.”
Kaladeen says four local doctors are now at retirement age and she’s very concerned that a waiting list of several thousand people without primary care will only grow.
She says the North Murray Street building should be renovated for a medical clinic using money from donations and government grants, adding the city itself has already spent enough local tax dollars on it.
“And maybe we would try to use this building to recruit doctors that would look after military families and veterans. A lot of people don’t realize but military families and veterans do not
get looked after by the base. It’s the responsibility of our community to look after them.”
Kaladeen believes a focus on caring for military families and veterans could interest the federal and even the provincial government to provide financial support for renovations.
Once the building houses practising medical professionals it would be financially self-sustaining.
Kaladeen appeared recently on CJBQ’s Lorne Brooker Show hosted by Tim Durkin.
Below is the entire interview.
