ABOYNE – It was a very merry Christmas for Groves Memorial Community Hospital, as the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care gave the green light on Dec. 22 to go ahead with stage three of the new hospital planning process.
“Groves hospital staff, building committee and board members, along with consultants, have diligently been working over the past year on completing stage two of the [ministry’s] five-step capital planning process,” Groves hospital board chair Howard Dobson said in a press release.
“Stage two defines the types of programs and services that the new [hospital] will provide. We looked at key factors such as patient volumes and staffing needs.
“These needs established the design requirements that will be used to make more detailed architectural drawings of the new hospital. We are thrilled to receive approval to the next stage of planning.”
Groves president and CEO Jerome Quenneville told the Advertiser that while the approval came a little later than anticipated, overall the project is on track for its 2019 opening.
“The criteria the province uses for various departments … has changed over time, so it certainly caused us to revisit some of our plans from what we originally thought, but it’s certainly on track,” Quenneville said.
“We would have liked to be here sooner, but that’s typical with a project of this size.”
Quenneville says stage three is the final step to be completed before contractors are selected for the bidding process and a final design and construction proposal is chosen.
He says over the next year hospital officials will be finalizing “project-specific output specifications” such as required air circulation and other operational components.
“These specifications will describe the standards and the performance requirements to which the new hospital will be built and then operate,” Quenneville explained.
Although the project is on-schedule, he said before a contractor and design are selected, it would be premature to estimate the total cost of the facility.
“It certainly may shift quite a bit through to the bidding process,” he said. “But at this point we don’t foresee anything unusual that would take us off track.”
In a statement, Wellington Halton-Hills MPP Ted Arnott expressed his gratitude and excitement upon hearing news of the approval.
“I want to thank the staff and volunteers at Groves for their outstanding work, which has resulted in this good news for our community, just in time for Christmas,” Arnott said in an email. “As we move into the next stage of planning for our new hospital, I will continue to monitor developments and work with the hospital, ministry and MPPs toward the realization of our vision of a new hospital to meet the needs of our community in the 21st century.”
Stage three is expected to be completed in 2015 and the project is on schedule to release tender documents by the end of the year.
Construction at the new site in Aboyne is anticipated to begin in 2017 with the majority of the facility completed by 2018. The new hospital is expected to be open for patient care in 2019.
“It’s a great beginning to the new year as we move into that next stage of planning and we look forward to keeping it moving forward as quickly as we can,” Quenneville said.
Groves hospital serves about 32,000 patrons regionally, treating 68,000 patients every year. The current facility has 44 beds with over 285 staff and 300 volunteers.
