Hospitals in KW

[tomh009]

This is what many people are missing. They think that Grand River staying open for urgent care is the same as an emergency room.  It is not, not even close.

Fundamentally, (all/most) ambulances will go to the new hospital. But if you can walk in, you can still go to the current GRH location. I expect that what they will still be able do there will be substantially more than the typical urgent care clinic. How exactly they will draw the line remains to be seen.

[nms]

London has their massive hospital complex in the south-east corner of the City.  As the crow flies, it's about 3km from their downtown core (I used Budweiser Gardens as a reference).

The new site in Waterloo will be about 6km from Downtown Kitchener, or 4km from from the existing GRH site.


After the hospital opens, the GRH Kitchener site will be repurposed into an ambulatory and urgent care centre.  As for the the St Mary's site, the press release stated: "The future of the St. Mary’s site will be determined by the St. Joseph’s Health System through consultation with patients, community members, municipal planning bodies, and health care partners, including the KW4 Ontario Health Team. The Hospital location will remain operational until the new hospital opens."  Given that it is nearly 10 years from now and governments/politicans are likely to change at all levels in that time, who knows what proposal might come forward.

Since I couldn't tell the difference in care levels, I had to look them up:

Ambulatory care: "Ambulatory care, also known as outpatient care, is medical care or surgical treatment that does not require an overnight stay in hospital. Ambulatory care is typically offered in response to a medical event — with the goal of preventing or reducing the need for hospital admission." (Niagara Health)

Urgent Care Centre: "Treatment for most injuries and illnesses such as infections, earaches, eye injuries, sprains, broken bones, cuts, fevers, minor burns and nose and throat complaints through emergency-trained doctors and other health care professionals at an Urgent Care Centre." (Ontario Health)

Emergency Room: "Emergency rooms provide treatment of severe illnesses and life-threatening injuries 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If you need urgent medical attention for serious illness or injury, visit an ER. A doctor or nurse will assess your condition and decide on a course of treatment." (Ontario Health)

The short version would be that if an ambulance is called, you are more likely to be taken to the Emergency Room.  I'm not sure what happens if you walk into the Urgent Care Centre and you really should go to the Emergency Room.

[KentHD]

Unfortunately, we don't build hospitals for individuals, we build them for cities. People who live in the north end of Waterloo, or Elmira or Wellesley, will benefit from the new hospital location because it puts resources much closer to where they live. There was never going to be a location that makes everyone happy. (For me personally, the UW location will be twice as far away from my home as either GRH or StM).

Right, we build hospitalS.

A single location is obviously idiotic. The correct thing to do is to open a new location and keep the existing ones.

Any experts reading this who disagree: If I’m wrong, you should be able to explain briefly why and how. I promise to read and think carefully about anything you write before repeating my disagreement (or, in principle, changing my opinion, but I don’t see that as very likely in this case; at a minimum you must address the issue of resilience in the face of an ER-closing event).

I won't claim to be an expert. But where are the staff for this new hospital going to come from? It's already a struggle to staff the hospitals we have.

[KentHD]

London has their massive hospital complex in the south-east corner of the City.  As the crow flies, it's about 3km from their downtown core (I used Budweiser Gardens as a reference).

The new site in Waterloo will be about 6km from Downtown Kitchener, or 4km from from the existing GRH site.


After the hospital opens, the GRH Kitchener site will be repurposed into an ambulatory and urgent care centre.  As for the the St Mary's site, the press release stated: "The future of the St. Mary’s site will be determined by the St. Joseph’s Health System through consultation with patients, community members, municipal planning bodies, and health care partners, including the KW4 Ontario Health Team. The Hospital location will remain operational until the new hospital opens."  Given that it is nearly 10 years from now and governments/politicans are likely to change at all levels in that time, who knows what proposal might come forward.

Since I couldn't tell the difference in care levels, I had to look them up:

Ambulatory care: "Ambulatory care, also known as outpatient care, is medical care or surgical treatment that does not require an overnight stay in hospital. Ambulatory care is typically offered in response to a medical event — with the goal of preventing or reducing the need for hospital admission." (Niagara Health)

Urgent Care Centre: "Treatment for most injuries and illnesses such as infections, earaches, eye injuries, sprains, broken bones, cuts, fevers, minor burns and nose and throat complaints through emergency-trained doctors and other health care professionals at an Urgent Care Centre." (Ontario Health)

Emergency Room: "Emergency rooms provide treatment of severe illnesses and life-threatening injuries 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If you need urgent medical attention for serious illness or injury, visit an ER. A doctor or nurse will assess your condition and decide on a course of treatment." (Ontario Health)

The short version would be that if an ambulance is called, you are more likely to be taken to the Emergency Room.  I'm not sure what happens if you walk into the Urgent Care Centre and you really should go to the Emergency Room.

If you go to an Urgent Care clinic and they determine you need to be sent to Emergency Room they will call an ambulance to transfer you. And since you are already under care you should not be billed for the ambulance.

[KentHD]

I thought this came up earlier and it was noted that GRH will be keeping its emergency room. Maybe I'm mistaken, though, because I can't remember the source for this.

It has always been the plan to shut the emergency department in both St Mary's and Grand River..always the plan and it has been reviewed as correct on here.   I just Wazed to see how long from my house in the Lackner Woods area to where the new hosptial woud be.  Between 18 and 24 mins depending on route.   I will be faster to go to Cambridge

The ambulance crew will decide which hospital Emergency Room to go to. They will have up to date info on how busy each ER is. 
If you're planning your own drive time I question whether it's truly an emergency or just urgent. 
Granted people do make poor choices and waste valuable time by choosing to drive someone to an ER instead of calling 911. Perhaps the possible ambulance bill is more important than life. But if it's a heart attack or a stroke or serious injury you call 911. And our tiered response will kick in and dispatch emergency help. And in my experience the first on scene will be the firecrew. If it's a heart attack they will start CPR (or take over if someone has been doing CPR) connect an AED and oxygen. If that doesn't work they will continue CPR until the ambulance arrives. If it's an injury they will stabilize it. If police are first they can do much the same. And it's that time between event and first responders on scene that matter much more than how far the ambulance has to travel to an ER.

[KevinL]

The short version would be that if an ambulance is called, you are more likely to be taken to the Emergency Room.  I'm not sure what happens if you walk into the Urgent Care Centre and you really should go to the Emergency Room.

Presumably they call an ambulance to take you to an ER.

[KentHD]

The short version would be that if an ambulance is called, you are more likely to be taken to the Emergency Room.  I'm not sure what happens if you walk into the Urgent Care Centre and you really should go to the Emergency Room.

Presumably they call an ambulance to take you to an ER.

I can confirm that. If Urgent Care decides you need to be in an ER you will be transferred by ambulance.

[panamaniac]

London has their massive hospital complex in the south-east corner of the City.  As the crow flies, it's about 3km from their downtown core (I used Budweiser Gardens as a reference).

The new site in Waterloo will be about 6km from Downtown Kitchener, or 4km from from the existing GRH site.


After the hospital opens, the GRH Kitchener site will be repurposed into an ambulatory and urgent care centre.  As for the the St Mary's site, the press release stated: "The future of the St. Mary’s site will be determined by the St. Joseph’s Health System through consultation with patients, community members, municipal planning bodies, and health care partners, including the KW4 Ontario Health Team. The Hospital location will remain operational until the new hospital opens."  Given that it is nearly 10 years from now and governments/politicans are likely to change at all levels in that time, who knows what proposal might come forward.

Since I couldn't tell the difference in care levels, I had to look them up:

Ambulatory care: "Ambulatory care, also known as outpatient care, is medical care or surgical treatment that does not require an overnight stay in hospital. Ambulatory care is typically offered in response to a medical event — with the goal of preventing or reducing the need for hospital admission." (Niagara Health)

Urgent Care Centre: "Treatment for most injuries and illnesses such as infections, earaches, eye injuries, sprains, broken bones, cuts, fevers, minor burns and nose and throat complaints through emergency-trained doctors and other health care professionals at an Urgent Care Centre." (Ontario Health)

Emergency Room: "Emergency rooms provide treatment of severe illnesses and life-threatening injuries 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If you need urgent medical attention for serious illness or injury, visit an ER. A doctor or nurse will assess your condition and decide on a course of treatment." (Ontario Health)

The short version would be that if an ambulance is called, you are more likely to be taken to the Emergency Room.  I'm not sure what happens if you walk into the Urgent Care Centre and you really should go to the Emergency Room.

Based on that, it could be helpful to have separate hospitals offering urgent care and emergency services - at present, they all end up in the same place.

[bravado]

London has 3 hospitals... but St. Joseph that's right next to downtown seems to only have an Urgent Care department and the 2 university hospitals have the real ERs.

[ac3r]

Man I just caught up on this thread...

Do ANY of you know what you're talking about when it comes to cities and built environments etc...ever? Lol jeez so much unwarranted paranoia, doom, gloom and schizoposting. Just...omfg. NIMBYs and YIMBYs are truly two sides of the same coin.

[bravado]

Man I just caught up on this thread...

Do ANY of you know what you're talking about when it comes to cities and built environments etc...ever? Lol jeez so much unwarranted paranoia, doom, gloom and schizoposting. Just...omfg. NIMBYs and YIMBYs are truly two sides of the same coin.

tl;dr: previous generations had services near where the people are, we don't know how to do that anymore so suck it up

[creative]

Did we ever hear what the other location was that they were considering?

[KevinL]

We have not. I'm curious if that will ever be made public.

[tomh009]

We have not. I'm curious if that will ever be made public.

It appears that they have no intention of publishing the name of the other finalist. Of course, it's possible that some insider could leak it in the future.

[Rainrider22]

They fear that most will think the alternate site is better..