Growing capacity by 500 beds: More details about new hospital in Waterloo Region

The future of healthcare in Waterloo Region is starting to come into focus.

More details have been shared about the vision for the yet-to-be-named hospital.

It comes after local officials, alongside Premier Doug Ford, announced the location of the new hospital Monday morning.

While hospital leadership said changes are anticipated, the overall ability to care for a growing population will vastly improve.

When the new hospital is built in 10 to 15 years, it will coincide with the closure of St. Mary’s General Hospital. According to healthcare officials, the number of hospitals in the region will stay the same but the number of beds with dramatically increase.

“So if you look at our capacity today, we anticipate growing by over 500 beds in this new building compared to the capacity we have today,” said Mark Fam, president of St. Mary’s Hospital.

Fam said a growing hospital system is needed to keep up with the region’s growing and aging population.

“You have to remember we serve a broader region of about 10% of the province. So it's not only our community…but it's the regions up to Tobermory over to Stratford over to Guelph that rely on our regional services like cancer, cardiac, renal and other services that need our growth as well.”

The new Waterloo hospital will include an emergency room and many of the services previously provided at St. Mary’s and Grand River hospitals.

“It'll have the majority of our inpatient beds, so when you get admitted to hospital into a bed, that's where the majority of the beds will be for that short term stay,” Fam said. “Our cardiac services or the cardiac labs, cardiac surgery - all those services will transition to the new site.”

The Grand River site will focus on emergency and urgent care but the exact composition of the hospitals is still a work in progress.

“Let's look at all of our different clinical services: cardiac cancer, renal, mental health, etc, and let's just take a step back now and say where should all these services be the best to meet the needs of the community and the best fit into the buildings we will continue to use and the buildings we will build?” Fam said.

Before the new hospital is operational, there will be some changes to hospital services, including adding new services.

“So PET scanning and neurosurgery, we're working on bringing those to the community now,” said Ron Gagnon, president of Grand River Hospital. “We're looking at bringing [that] into the community even before the new hospital opens and doing that in a way that we're able to protect the investments that will be made.”

Gagnon added that MRI’s and diagnostic imaging will likely be located at both the urgent care and the acute care sites.

Hospital presidents emphasized that Cambridge Memorial Hospital was involved in this process. They said they worked with leadership from Cambridge Memorial Hospital to determine what was needed and how much space would be required, adding they have a close relationship with the other hospital networks in the area.

“They've also been part of our committee at the board level, overseeing the development of the new hospital planning, including the site selection. So they've been part of that. They've also been part of our discussions when we talk about St. Mary's and growing the hospital in the region. So they've been fully involved in these discussions and I just want to dispel a myth that Cambridge hasn't been involved because they've been actively involved,” Gagnon said.

A full timeline of the project can be found here.