Community input needed to help decide location of Waterloo region's new joint hospital

People in Waterloo region are being asked for their thoughts on where the community's new joint hospital should be located.

Grand River Hospital and St. Mary's General Hospital have created an online survey to get community feedback to help guide them as they consider potential sites for the new joint hospital.

The two hospitals have also put together a site selection panel that will be making a recommendation by the end of this year for the preferred location of the new hospital.

Once the new joint hospital is built, two existing hospital sites in Kitchener and Waterloo will be repurposed:

• The midtown Kitchener-Waterloo hospital will become an ambulatory and urgent care centre.
• The Freeport campus of Grand River Hospital will be expanded to increase rehabilitation capacity.

All three sites would be shared by Grand River Hospital and St. Mary's General Hospital.

The hospitals received $5 million in a planning grant from the provincial government in April 2022 to get the work on the new hospital started.

Grand River Hospital CEO Ron Gagnon and St. Mary's General Hospital CEO Mark Fam issued a joint statement on Wednesday, urging residents to share their thoughts.

"The location of the future hospital that will be shared by Grand River Hospital and St. Mary's General Hospital is going to have a significant impact on how we continue to deliver exceptional patient care and help our community grow and prosper," Gagnon said in the statement.

Fam said listening to the community is a crucial step in ensuring the success of the new hospital.

"We expect hearing about the importance of public transit and other access, how close it is to other health facilities," Fam told CBC News.

"Ultimately, we want to make sure that we are supporting broad access for the entire region, so that we're thinking both around our three cities and their proximity to each other, but also the 1.4 million people that we serve as two hospitals every day from a broader regional catchment."

The last day to fill out the survey is August 3, 2023.