Hospitals in KW

[Acitta]

This brief drone video was posted three weeks ago.
The Future Home of Waterloo Region’s New Hospital

[ac3r]

As of next Tuesday (April 1st), all hospitals within Waterloo Region sans Cambridge Memorial Hospital will be merged under a new umbrella organization and each hospital will now take on a new name.

Grand River Hospital and St Mary's General Hospital will be officially merged and renamed to the Waterloo Regional Health Network.

The hospitals will be renamed as follows:

• St. Mary's General Hospital will be renamed to WRHN - Queen's Boulevard Site
  
• KW Hospital will be renamed to WRHN - Midtown Site
  
• Freeport Hospital will be renamed WRHN - Chicopee Site
  

Most likely it'll be many, many years before any of those names catch on, though! KWHC and FHC merged into GRH in the mid 1990s but even to this day, people still call them KW Hospital and Freeport Hospital.

Also...does anyone know why Cambridge Memorial Hospital still chooses to remain independent?

[KevinL]

So the name 'Grand River Hospital' will simply cease to be? They'll have to rename the Ion station. 'Midtown Hospital'?

[ac3r]

I have no clue if they'll rename the station, but if they do they should just call it Midtown Station. I don't know why they would have went with a mouthful like Grand River Hospital Station. Midtown Station (eventually just Midtown, no doubt) would be nicer to say, especially for as the area starts to rapidly grow in population as more towers and skyscrapers spring up along this part of the corridor. It'd just be easier to say for everyone.

Or heck...Mount Hope Station would have had a nicer sound, even if it borrowed from a nearby cemetery. There's probably more lore to that name beyond just that, too.

[bravado]

Also...does anyone know why Cambridge Memorial Hospital still chooses to remain independent?

It's one of those weird government black holes like school boards... who actually controls stuff like this behind the scenes?

[westwardloo]

Also...does anyone know why Cambridge Memorial Hospital still chooses to remain independent?

Same reason Cambridge hydro (energy +) merged with Brantford instead of Kitchener-Wilmot (Now Enova). Cambridge will try their hardest not to be part of our Region. Most of the time the do it to spit K-W at there own detriment (Cambridge Rec Centre, Original LRT).

[bravado]

Also...does anyone know why Cambridge Memorial Hospital still chooses to remain independent?

Same reason Cambridge hydro (energy +) merged with Brantford instead of Kitchener-Wilmot (Now Enova). Cambridge will try their hardest not to be part of our Region. Most of the time the do it to spit K-W at there own detriment (Cambridge Rec Centre, Original LRT).

Or maybe some administrator likes their little empire and nobody is around to overrule it… or the city is full of spiteful trolls I guess that’s another option.

[ac3r]

NGL I usually default to the explaination that it's Cambridge being Cambridge, while half joking but half serious. There's some quiet animosity between the ways we all operate together.

[Acitta]

St. Mary’s and Grand River Hospital officially merge
Kitchener’s hospitals officially merge to create Waterloo Region Health Network.

[creative]

Was the other new hospital finalist site ever revealed to the public.

[KevinL]

The former Grand River website - still at the same URL of https://www.grhosp.on.ca/ - now has the new name and logo.



It doesn't yet integrate any St. Mary's info.

[ac3r]

I got a whole bunch of stickers and other supplies with the new branding recently. From a design perspective, I rather like the colour scheme of it.

I've also been getting some sneak peaks at what sort of things they are expecting to see in the new hospital design. It's definitely going to be a spacious place. I just really hope they pick the right people because when it comes to hospital design you want an architectural, engineering and health team that can truly collaborate to make something modular and long lasting, rather than a building that suffers limitations. There's so much minutia that must be taken into account due to what a hospital does.

If you're bored, there's interesting ideas to be seen here: https://divisare.com/search/advanced/pro...h+Projects

[westwardloo]

It's obviously too late, but I am still disappointed that we decided to go with an suburban style office park hospital with a large footprint and a sea of parking instead of an urban style hospital. 

Mississauga is getting $15 billion from the province to build a 22 story hospital on an existing hospital site that is less than 24 acres, but We had to have a new site bigger than 60 acres? 

https://www.cp24.com/local/peel/2025/06/...-new-beds/

I don't hate the site chosen and if the University has aspirations for a medical program in the future it makes sense, But I do wish they had chosen the site bordering Wes Graham way and Hagey blvd right beside the LRT stop. The site would have been 30 acres with lots of room for expansion if we chose to build up.

[MidTowner]

‘Another example of disrespect’: Union upset over plan to shuttle nurses to Kitchener hospital

Nice illustration of the entitlement many drivers feel to free parking immediately adjacent to where they are going. Also sort of speaks to westwardloo's very good comment about how unfortunate it is that we will get a suburban hospital campus with a sea of parking instead of an urban hospital with great transit and active transportation connections.

I wish the article noted where the parking lot for the nurses at St. Mary's will be...it's hard to take seriously the comment from the union steward that it will add 40 minutes on each end of a shift, but I guess it's possible.

[timio]

‘Another example of disrespect’: Union upset over plan to shuttle nurses to Kitchener hospital

Nice illustration of the entitlement many drivers feel to free parking immediately adjacent to where they are going. Also sort of speaks to westwardloo's very good comment about how unfortunate it is that we will get a suburban hospital campus with a sea of parking instead of an urban hospital with great transit and active transportation connections.

I wish the article noted where the parking lot for the nurses at St. Mary's will be...it's hard to take seriously the comment from the union steward that it will add 40 minutes on each end of a shift, but I guess it's possible.

The thread on Reddit suggests it's at the Concordia Club.