Community town hall set to discuss future of new hospital in Waterloo region

People who want to ask questions or have their say about the planned new hospital in Waterloo region can take part in a public town hall next week.

It's scheduled for Jan. 16, starting at 7 p.m. at the Queen Street branch of the Kitchener Public Library. Tickets are required but are free and available online through the Future of Care Together website, which provides updates about the project.

Town hall attendees will learn more about the project and can ask questions, a media release said.

The new hospital is a joint venture between Grand River Hospital and St. Mary's General Hospital. The project includes the construction of a new hospital and modernization of existing hospitals in the region.

"In working together, we're able to leverage each hospital's unique specialties and skills, to ensure patients across the communities we serve have access to the highest quality care, technology and infrastructure," Mark Fam, president of St. Mary's General Hospital, said in a news release.

Once the new hospital is built, initial plans are to repurpose Grand River's midtown Kitchener-Waterloo campus into an ambulatory and urgent care centre, and expand the Freeport campus for more rehabilitation services, according to the release.

Read more coverage about the new hospital:

Site selection committee work ongoing

In April 2022, the Ontario government announced it had approved a $5-million grant to build the new hospital.

Five sites were submitted to a site selection panel in November and three locations have been short-listed since then.

A decision on the location of the new hospital was expected to be made by the end of 2023, but has since been delayed, said Carl Zehr, chair of the site selection panel.

The three proposed locations are not yet public and must still pass through the site selection panel's "mandatory criteria."

Zehr said in an interview with CBC News that the panel exists only to aid in the selection of an appropriately suited site, but ultimately the final decision is up to the hospitals. 

He said that once a decision has been finalized, it would take approximately 10 years before the new hospital becomes operational.