The town of Coboconk, Ont., is months away from opening its new healthcare hub, but getting there has been a long journey.
Around the end of 2016, the town discovered that its Medical Centre was no longer structurally sound. Community members hemmed and hawed about what to do, but the building was eventually slated for demolition with the doctor’s practice being transferred to a portable trailer.
“That’s not a great way to keep a doctor in town,” says Jennifer Wilson, the operations director of Coboconk’s new Summit Wellness Centre.
Concerned about losing their healthcare professional, the Coboconk, Norland, and Area Chamber of Commerce partnered with its Kawartha Lakes ward councillor, Emmett Yeo, to find a solution. Yeo suggested the chamber of commerce repurpose Coboconk’s historic train station.
At one time, 60 train stations dotted the landscape of the Kawartha Lakes area. Today, the Coboconk train station is one of only 10 left. However, the old red and white building hasn’t seen a train since 1965. In fact, the municipality, which owns the building, deemed the train station underused and considered selling it off as surplus several years ago, but pushback from the community derailed the idea.
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After Yeo’s suggestion, the chamber of commerce canvassed the community asking whether it supported the idea of transforming the train station into a new health care facility. The answer was a resounding yes. The chamber of commerce also consulted with the Kawartha Lakes Health Care Initiative, a physician recruitment organization, about whether this was feasible and how to best attract doctors and nurse practitioners to the area.
Armed with the support of the community, the chamber of commerce started fundraising. By 2022, more than 1,500 donors had raised over $1 million. “We had no idea what the capacity of the community would be to give to a project like this, or any other large endeavor because it hadn’t really been done before,” says Wilson. “We were astounded that the community came together to raise more than a million dollars in less than one year.”
The donations were augmented by $10 million in funding provided by the Kawartha Lakes municipal council, along with $250,000 received through the provincial government’s Rural Economic Development program. However, Wilson says the project is still shy of its $16.5 million goal. The chamber of commerce did launch another fundraising campaign this summer with the aim of raising $700,000 to furnish the Wellness Centre. It also has several other funding applications submitted to the government. Wilson says she’s hopeful the community’s dedication to the project will sway funding in their favour.
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In the meantime, construction is underway. The project broke ground on July 6, 2023. The train station will remain front and centre off Highway 35, but a lower level has been added as well as additional buildings connected to the back of the train station. Wilson says most of the structures have been erected and are now being sealed in for the winter with work continuing on the building’s interior.
The Wellness Centre is projected to be complete in Summer 2025. Once finished, the new healthcare hub will include several spaces for doctors and after-hours care, dental, physio, pain management, chronic disease management, mental health counselling, and more. The intention is to ensure under served residents in northern Kawartha Lakes receive the treatment they deserve.
The centre will also operate a business incubator where healthcare professionals from the community can rent space to work. For instance, a self-employed masseuse could rent a space at the centre once a week to see clients.
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Finally, the centre will pay homage to the train station’s history, repainting the exterior to the station’s original colour, and partnering with the Shedden Area Historical Society to create exhibitions telling the story of the area. The centre’s waiting room will also be the same space where customers used to wait for trains.
“That symmetry of purpose, I think that’s kind of poetic,” says Wilson.
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