Residents packed the hall at the Wellington County Museum and Archives on June 20 to check out details of the new Groves Memorial Community Hospital.
On hand at the open house were Groves representatives and others involved in the $127.5-million project to be completed by 2020.
Five days earlier Groves and Infrastructure Ontario officials announced they closed a deal with EllisDon Infrastructure GMCH Inc. for the design, construction and financing of the new hospital.
“Most communities rely on a vibrant hospital and the new Groves hospital is that,” hospital CEO Stephen Street said at the June 20 open house.
“It is more than 50 per cent larger, will have state-of-the-art technology, and is going to allow us to attract medical staff, professionals, midwives, nurses, lab techs and IT professionals,” he said.
Street added the building is located on 30 acres.
“The hospital is redesigned in a way to be more intuitive … for people to find their way,” he said. Plus, “As the community grows, the hospital can grow with it,” he explained.
He said there is a specific emphasis on emergency, obstetrics, diagnostics and ambulatory care.
“They are the areas where the hospital is growing the most,” he said, adding that the number of inpatient beds is only growing by three.
“A patient’s time spent in the hospital is much shorter than 10 years ago,” he said. “Overall the building is larger and from infection control, it’s going to be head and shoulders above what we have now.”
Street said the board is considering a second medical arts building – an integrated health facility next door to the hospital. It would attract any medical professional who wants to move closer to the new facility at Wellington Place.
He also predicted the new hospital will be one of the more energy efficient buildings in the community, which “will allow us to save operating dollars which can be redirected to front line patient care,” he said.
Though there will be fine tuning, Street said what was before the public that night “is pretty much how this will look in three years time.”
He noted there has been some cynicism in the community as the project had appeared to be on-again-off-again for some years.
Stephanie Pearsall, chief nursing executive, said Fergus had 474 births last year – a record for Groves. She anticipated the trend will continue and noted the new Groves will have “state-of-the-art labour and delivery suites.”
