Waterloo Region Council Election Discussion

[jgsz]

He did propose specifically a teaching hospital, though. And in the context of making this a world-class city, similar to the provision of high-speed rail, so I take both of those as worthy long-term objectives.

Aissa wants to make an election issue out of that, though. In spite of the fact that the region has no power to establish a new hospital.

I'm in complete agreement. I think Aissa is likely pandering to Litt's audience by touching on the topic, and generally folks (I include myself here) don't have very clear understanding of whose responsibility such a thing would be. Aissa gets to say it will be a focus of his and there's a lot of people outside of Kitchener and Waterloo who would very reasonably think "yeah, another hospital with ready access for the townships would be great!"

A number of years ago I had lunch with UW President David Johnson and Vice President Amit Chakma and Johnson told me that he really wanted to see a teaching hospital in KW.  He thought it would fit in well between St. Mary's and Grand River Hospital.  He mentioned that several key ingredients were already in place, namely the School of Pharmacy, along with a branch of the School of Optometry and the Centre for Family Medicine.  Plus, Conestoga College has a nursing school.   The area around the School of Pharmacy has changed a lot since then so if KW got a teaching hospital I don't know where it would be built.  I suppose the old Uniroyal factory on Strange Street may be a possibility.