New South Niagara hospital beginning to take shape

When the new South Niagara Hospital is complete, it will bring a new level of healthcare to the region, Niagara Health’s president and chief executive officer says.

Lynn Guerriero said the new hospital will be flexible and able to adapt to changing needs. A big part of this will be increased emergency capacity, even with closures of urgent care centres in Fort Erie and Port Colborne.

“This emergency department is being built three times the size of our current Niagara Falls (Greater Niagara General) site, and it can actually handle double the capacity of patients,” Guerriero said Thursday at an event to mark a year since construction on the new hospital began.

“This hospital is being built with incredibly increased capacity in emerge to make sure that it can handle all of those people (who would otherwise seek help at Urgent Cares), in addition to future growth.”

Construction began on the 1.3-million-square-foot hospital in July of last year. Above-ground work began earlier this year and now the site is dotted with cranes lifting sections of rebar and building platforms as the first few floors of what will eventually be a 12-storey hospital is being constructed. The work is being carried out by EllisDon Infrastructure Healthcare (EDIH).

And it won’t be very long before the public will be able to see the entire 61-metre tower taking shape.

“In 2025 will be the topping off,” said Patrick Topping, Director of Transportation and Planning for Niagara Health, adding that, so far, the $3.6-billion project is on schedule and on budget.

Currently, work is being done on what will be the first three floors and as work gets completed, construction crews will continue to move upward.

“You'll see a lot of this as it builds out in the next year or so. And then all of a sudden, they'll start to go completely vertical.”

Ben Embir, Director of Planning and Design for Niagara Health said underground work at the site is “90 percent complete” and that this has allowed for upward construction to begin in earnest.

“They've done a heck of a job getting all of this work done so they can focus on the building itself,” he said.

Guerriero, meanwhile, said staffing levels have been an ongoing issue for Niagara Health. It wasn’t that long ago that the health system had to temporarily close of both Urgent Cares at different times so staff could be redeployed to emergency rooms in St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, and Welland. She said the new facility will attract more medical professionals and, in turn, help with staffing.

“I will say that having a brand new, state-of-the-art hospital will attract highly competent and critical clinicians to the area,” Guerriero said. “We know that we saw it with the St. Catherines site.”

The St. Catharines site of Niagara Health, now known as the Marotta Family Hospital, opened in 2013.

And adding the new South Niagara site into the mix as an attractor, more staff and more resources, wait times for things such as MRIs will decrease, she said.

“We need the physical space to actually have the equipment and treat a volume of patients and so definitely, all of that is being built into this site. We need the healthcare professionals who are there to treat the patients. “

When the new hospital comes online – this is expected to be the summer of 2028 – she said added MRI capacity will be a part of it, with capacity increasing by 70 percent.

But it will take more than having the hardware in place. There is a need for techs to run the machines. It’s not just in Niagara, either.

“Across the province, it's been really, really tough to catch up with the backlog of MRIs, Guerriero said. “All hospitals are sort of grappling with that, and our ability to add the infrastructure is terrific. We also need the people, and we have a shortage of techs, but we know opening a new hospital we will have will be a bit of a magnet for particularly newer grads.”

The design has also taken the region’s aging population to mind, Guerriero said. It will be “senior friendly” with abundant wayfinding signs, rest stops in hallways, and multiple entrances that will bring older patients into the hospital closer to where they need to go for a medical appointment.

“It will be easier to navigate for seniors, and particularly those who might not have the physical capacity to be walking long distances,” she said.

Furthermore, the hospital will be a centre of excellence for wellness and aging, she said.

“We’re making sure that we have ambulatory clinics, outpatient clinics that are focused on geriatrics,” Guerriero said. “We have been increasing our clinicians who focus on geriatrics, and the Niagara Health Knowledge Institute, which we launched just over a year ago now has a research focus in wellness and aging.”

Currently being built on a 50-acre site at the corner of Biggar and Montrose roads in Niagara Falls, the hospital will include 469 beds, all in single-patient (or private) rooms, inpatient and outpatient clinics. It will replace the aging Greater Niagara General Hospital site for Niagara Health as well as the Urgent Care Centres.

At the same time, Niagara Health has plans to redevelop its Welland site, including maintaining 24/7 emergency care and 90 complex care beds among other things.

In terms of design, the South Niagara site will have a podium base and tower floors. The podium levels will be home to the emergency department, diagnostic imaging, mental health and addictions services, dialysis, and other outpatient clinics while the tower floors will house patient beds for complex care, critical care, medical and surgical patients.

The main entrance to the new hospital will be off Biggar Road with a public transit stop to be installed not far from the main entrance.

Niagara Region and the City of Niagara Falls have all but completed road and infrastructure upgrades to meet traffic and service demands the new hospital will bring.

More information on the project may be found at niagarahealth.on.ca