Caring side of Sudbury promoted.

For the first-time visitor to Sudbury, navigating through the city's winding maze of streets can be a bewildering and frustrating experience. But imagine trying it when one is ill, or with some angst-ridden family members in tow. How does one find one's way to the doctor's office, or even hospital sites for scheduled appointments? Where are there reasonably-priced accommodations?

A Sudbury physician, sympathetic to the plight of out-of-towners on referral, wants to ease their suffering and anxiety just a tad by promoting Sudbury as a caring and compassionate community.

Cardiologist Ron Baigre and a handful of local specialists are collaborating with a Sudbury marketing firm, 50 Carleton & Associates, and the city's tourism partners by showcasing the community to visitors on a different purpose.

Under the tag line "We Care" and "Greater Sudbury, Greater Hospitality," the Sudbury Cares initiatives is designed to further develop and enhance Sudbury's stature as a regional health centre.

Baigre, who moved from Toronto to Sudbury in 1994, and set up practice on Larch Street downtown, began cultivating at least half of his growing patient load from out-of-town referrals from across northeastern Ontario.

"I suddenly realized people couldn't find the building, couldn't figure out the one-way streets, didn't know where the parking lot was, and I was also getting referrals coming in to be hospitalized for diagnostic testing to be done."

It became obvious there had to be better communication with patients, and his staff began creating city maps and mailing out rudimentary information packages directly to them.

Now Baigre and the award-winning marketing agency want to create a more formalized version to distribute to doctors across the North who are referring patients to Sudbury for tertiary care programs, such as cancer treatment, cardiology and orthopedic procedures.

Henry Goegan, a senior partner at 50 Carleton, provides figures that estimate the average patient load for a Sudbury physician is between 3,000 and 5,000, with their out-of-town referrals spending about $10 million to $15 million each year in the city.

He believes this is a genuine and growing economic development opportunity with the assets and infrastructure already in place to better promote the city as a regional centre of medical and life sciences.

"The idea is to take what exists here already and build upon its strengths," says Goegan, who has been working for the past few months with Greater Sudbury Development Corp. officials to find funding and business partners to roll out a program.

With a supporting Web site in the works (www.sudburycares.com), the kit would offer maps, city guides, shopping and area attractions along with value-added packages for accommodations, retail and area attraction.

There is growing realization, with the implementation of the northern medical school, of unlimited economic development possibilities. The impact of Sudbury's existing health-care sector has a substantial impact on the local economy, generating almost a half-billion dollars annually.

According to a study done in May 2001 by Laurentian's University's Centre for Rural and Northern Health Research, all of Sudbury's health institutions - the three hospitals, local physicians, the Northeast Mental Health Centre and the homes for the aged - contributed about $493 million in 1998 to the local economy, providing 13,817 full-time jobs with a net tax impact of almost $26 million.

Those figures do not include public health institutions, labs, health sciences, physiotherapy clinics, pharmacies and centres of research.