Hospitals in KW

[danbrotherston]

I hope they don't let the minimum 50 Acres site determine the perfect site for the Hospital.  It is such an arbitrary number forced by the province. The Aud lands are the clear front runner for best site in terms of car and transit access. No doubt the panel is going to recommend a site in south kitchener or by the St. Jacobs Market. I don't agree with some of you that we can just keep expanding the existing Hospitals in the Region. There is no room on the st. Mary's site to expand, and GRH is such a Frankenstein of a building that it would cost more to expand/ upgrade the site to meet the needs of our growing city then it would be to build new. They are also not one "Mega Hospital", the plan is to keep GRH operational and close St. Mary's. It will function as the main hospital in our Region and beyond though. Wouldn't it be nice if residents in the region and guelph didn't need to go to Hamilton or London for medical procedures?

I think you are exactly right about what the sites will be.

As for expanding, there's actually tons of room available at St. Marys.

Here look.

   

There's a parking lot across the street, and another one further on, both of which could be used to expand the hospital. Combined they're bigger than the existing site.

Is it an easy or instant mega project? No. Is it a long term incremental growth plan, obviously. And given that they already managed to convert one block of housing into parking, they could easily do that again to expand further if for some reason it was absolutely mandatory to maintain the surface parking lot. And yes, again, these aren't instant things, like I said, I think incremental strategies are best.

The situation at GRH is even more so, there's tons of empty land around it, whether we want to nearly double the site's footprint from Manulife, or build on the existing parking lots on the GRH site, or expand across King St., or across Green St., there are many options.

Incremental projects are better because they are less likely to end up as boondoggles that are late and over budget. To say nothing of further utilizing the excellent central locations the hospital already has, rather than moving to an exurban site that further reinforces inequities in the region.