Petrolia Council has unanimously approved contributing $150,000 to help pay for a consultant's study into establishing a one-stop health-care hub for the area's aging population.
Bluewater Health has already committed to spending $442,000 towards the cost.
Councillor Mary-Pat Gleeson is also chair of the Health Team Board.
"It will not be strictly a Petrolia initiative," she says. "The patients for the Health Team and the hospital and the proposed Hub will come from across all of Lambton. We would go to other communities to ask for help with financing and we would also go to the county."
The Health Hub could include housing, education and research facilities and long-term and palliative care and could be built in the area near CEE hospital and the Central Lambton Family Health Team, but Gleeson says a study is needed first.
"We can't go out expect communities to support it if you don't have a plan on what it would look like, what services will be available and those type of questions," she says. "We need answers."
It's hoped a plan is submitted to the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care for funding next October.
