01-25-2022, 11:47 AM
(01-25-2022, 02:24 AM)nms Wrote: Excellent digging to find those stories. My understanding is that for the past 20-30 years, hospital construction and renovation has largely focused on the consolidation of existing beds into larger regional facilities while closing smaller ones, generally on a 1:1 ratio. Governments and administrators of all stripes have done a very good job to make sure that there is no space for sudden patient surges into the hospital system. How things have not collapsed by this point will be a mystery for the ages.
The only "new" beds built in that same 30-year time period is the Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital next to Canada's Wonderland (fun fact: built on land purchased from Canada's Wonderland). Just like most public infrastructure these days, building hospitals takes time**. According to the Wikipedia article for the hospital, it was first proposed in 2004 (just after Dalton McGuinty brought the Liberals to power), groundbreaking took place in 2016 (Kathleen Wynne was leading the Liberals then), and the hospital was opened in 2021. As they were in power at the time, the Ford PC Government took credit for the whole project.
I'm not sure where one might look to see what "new" beds are actually in the pipeline, but the Ontario government counted a total of 17,000 beds in system as of January 11, 2022. The same press release claimed that 3100 beds had been added to the health care system since March 2020. Clearly there are differing definitions about what counts as a hospital bed.
** For comparison, what is now the Grand River Hospital was proposed in 1893 and opened in 1895, fully funded through public donations with a generous land donation of 95 acres from Joseph Seagram. I'm not sure if the current hospital site is actually a 95 acres, or whether it is closer to 9.5 acres and someone missed a decimal place on the Grand River Hospital Foundation page.
Currently the site is about 14+ acres. So not likely a typo, I believe the property was larger and some it was sold over time. Mind you, GRH has some property, I believe, in and around that area. So quite possibly they have more than 14 acres, but perhaps the rest was sold overtime, to help fund the hospital and services.