Hospitals in KW

[ijmorlan]

That being said, to ijmorlan's comment, there is actually a huge benefit to having facilities co-located in a hospital, the point is to share common facilities, like labs, imaging, and other services. While it's easy for staff to move between facilities, it's very hard for patients to move between facilities. I can see the value in co-locating the facilities, but it doesn't change that the land requirement is totally absurd. The land requirement is driven by parking and nothing else.

Those are good points. I’m not sure it really says that long-term cancer, say, really needs to be co-located with maternity, but I agree there are benefits to having things together.

I would dispute that the land “requirement” is driven by parking. The main parking lot at Pearson Airport Terminal 1 is on about 5ha or 12 acres. It holds 9000 vehicles. Just how many patients are they expecting at this new hospital?

I believe the land requirement is just picked to be ample, with no consideration of the consequences. To be fair, this is normal for car infrastructure: it would be “nice” if there were space for everybody to park when they go to the store, so we have parking minima for commercial buildings, and it’s handy to have a place to park at home, so we have parking minima there too; those of us who question this clearly do not possess the degree of expertise possessed by our credentialed planners.