Hospitals in KW

[creative]

Don’t we have an insider here that bragged about knowing the two finalist sites!

[panamaniac]

Has there been much/any pushback wrt to the site chosen? I've not seen anything, a bit to my surprise.

[ijmorlan]

Has there been much/any pushback wrt to the site chosen?  I've not seen anything, a bit to my surprise.

I’m OK with the location. My objection is to the idiotic centralization of all ER services into one location, and would remain no matter where they chose to put the new hospital.

[Rainrider22]

I agree, if they kept Grand emergency open I wouldn't care so much. But this site is ludicrous when you know the other 2.hospitals won't be serving emergent issues

[tomh009]

I agree, if they kept Grand emergency open I wouldn't care so much.  But this site is ludicrous when you know the other 2.hospitals won't be serving emergent issues

All depends on how "emergency" is defined here. I believe that most of the people going to the ER at Grand River today are not arriving by ambulance; as I understand it, those people would still be able to go to the "urgent care" at Grand River even after the new hospital opens.

[Rainrider22]

Any suspected cardiac event will need to go to all the way to the new hospital, good luck with that. Minutes matter. The sooner the proper drugs are administered, the better your chance of survival and limited permeant damage. One of the reasons St Mary's has the highest rank success rate in Canada for cardiac events is due to its location, quick access to the appropriate measures. People will die on ambulances and in cars while enroute to that location.. At least the people in Waterloo should be fine though..

[ac3r]

Are there statistics to support that? Because usually when building a hospital and picking a site, they take travel time into account. I don't see why they wouldn't do that for this one.

[panamaniac]

Are there statistics to support that? Because usually when building a hospital and picking a site, they take travel time into account. I don't see why they wouldn't do that for this one.

No matter where they put it, travel time is going to increase for some and decrease for others.  One must assume that it's all within reasonable safety margins.

[ac3r]

It certainly should be. There are always all sorts of considerations taken when it comes to where a hospital (or other services such as fire, police, ambulance...heck, even schools) can be placed in respect to travel time. Plus, there's no way both St. Mary's nor Grand River Hospital would choose to put the first new hospital in Waterloo Region in...what, over half a century? in the absolute worst possible place only accessible by Hummer SUVs. That's especially why I had to keep rolling my eyes at suggestions it would be way out at the dump or something. That'd had to be a last resort.

In the case of cardiac arrest (since that was mentioned), a stroke, suicidal tendencies, overdose or other acute emergencies the paramedics will take the patient to the closest hospital that can handle that...which is all of them. Yes, St. Mary's specializes in heart health but that doesn't mean none of the other hospitals are equipped to deal with such an event. They all are. If you had a heart attack across the street to Grand River Hospital and phoned 911, they aren't going to ship you to St. Mary's lol they will rush you in there immediately. They have both the staff and equipment needed to immediately intervene in such an event. Heck, if you had a cardiac event in the hospital, they don't rush you to the ER, a response team grabs the closest crash cart and comes to you. Hence the name of the cart, right? St. Mary's is where you'd then be transferred to for better specialized care in that situation.

What is changing is that only the new hospital will have a dedicated emergency room, but each hospital is capable of handling the most common medical issues and I am sure they would continue to be options if the paramedics deem the patient so at risk that they need to go there. They also have protocols in for handling things like mass causality events such as a bus accident, mass shooting or even as we witnessed recently, a pandemic. In 2020, the Freeport site of GRH quickly mobilized to convert parts of that hospital into hospital space to care for a potential overwhelming surge of covid-19 patience, even at great risk to the long term patients there (most are quite frail; nurses regularly joke "Freeport is where you go to die") despite it not being at all similar to a typical hospital.

I think the main difference going forward will simply be that if you require a visit to the emergency room, you'll go to the new hospital. But I suspect that the existing hospitals will still maintain some degree of readiness for unexpected or uncommon situations.

[Rainrider22]

Sorry, wrong

[tomh009]

Sorry, wrong

So, I think the details have yet to be announced, so there is no absolute wrong or right here.

But the current Grand River hospital site will continue to be a fully-functioning hospital, so they will indeed be able to deal with a cardiac arrest. How the ambulance crews will decided where to take patients is something that none of us know yet, I believe.

[neonjoe]

I think this may be the line that Rainrider22 was referring to

"But I suspect that the existing hospitals will still maintain some degree of readiness for unexpected or uncommon situations."

The existing St Mary's hospital will be closing, so there is one less hospital available for the South West side of Kitchener.

[creative]

I know the sites they're looking at. Not ideal, but meh... healthcare matters more than anything, so any new hospital will be good. I know this forum is obsessed with transit, bikes and all that stuff but a new hospital is needed ASAP.

Obviously I can't say anything as I'm not involved with this, I just have close relationships with people in healthcare but I'm sure it'll come out in due time.

Can you now share the other site that they were considering?

[Rainrider22]

Yes, what everyone is missing is that a cardiac event would go to the new hospital...thats where the cardiac clinic from St Mary's will be.located. Grand River will no longer be an emergency department......they will deal with walk in stuff. No ambulances.

[ac3r]

I know the sites they're looking at. Not ideal, but meh... healthcare matters more than anything, so any new hospital will be good. I know this forum is obsessed with transit, bikes and all that stuff but a new hospital is needed ASAP.

Obviously I can't say anything as I'm not involved with this, I just have close relationships with people in healthcare but I'm sure it'll come out in due time.

Can you now share the other site that they were considering?

Unfortunately not, I wasn't supposed to know haha. But I can at least say a lot of the ideas we were throwing around were on the list. However, they wanted somewhere ready for building, so anywhere with existing structures was not ideal.