One hospital set to close when new acute care facility opens in Waterloo Region
On Thursday, the province of Ontario reaffirmed a $10 million dollar commitment to support the planning and construction of a new Waterloo Regional Health Network hospital at the University of Waterloo.
The new hospital will be built on lands west of Bearinger Road and Hagey Boulevard in Waterloo and focus on acute care. It will feature expanded cardiac clinics as part of the Regional Cardiac Care Centre, enhanced surgical spaces, modernized medical and surgical inpatient units and maternal, newborn and pediatric care.
Officials hope to open the new facility by 2035.
'We continue at a pretty rapid pace to try to meet our original timelines,' Ron Gagnon, president and CEO of Waterloo Regional Health Network said. 'This funding helps us to do that. We are right about, I would say, halfway through the planning project at this point.'
Part of the planning includes what comes next for the network's current hospitals: WRHN @ Midtown (formerly Grand River Hospital, KW Campus), WRHN @ Queen's Blvd. (formerly St. Mary's General Hospital) and WRHN @ Chicopee (formerly Grand River Hospital, Freeport Campus).
WRHN @ Chicopee will remain focused on continuing care and rehabilitation.
WRHN @ Midtown will transition into a high intensity outpatient care centre and urgent care facility.
But the WRHN @ Queen's Blvd. is facing a different fate.
'Once we open the doors that are the new acute care facility, we will discontinue the use of our Queen's Blvd. site,' Gagnon said.
Hospital network officials said at that point, it will be up to the St. Joseph Health Network, the group that owns the property, to decide what happens next.
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