BLOG: Our fast-growing Children’s Hospital will need a new home
Imagining a new hospital in a new location
By Dr. Peter Fitzgerald, President, McMaster Children’s Hospital
As any parent knows, kids grow up fast. One minute you’re snapping them into a onesie and the next, they’re asking for the car keys.
I often get the same feeling about our McMaster Children’s Hospital. It seems like yesterday we were celebrating an official designation as Ontario’s newest children’s hospital; now, our 30th anniversary is only a year away. And talk about growing before your eyes: We are the fastest-growing of any children’s hospital in the province and are now second only to the Hospital for Sick Children in size (for number of patients and level of acuity).
During the last five years at our Children’s Hospital, we’ve seen an overall 25 per cent growth in inpatient activity, with a particular growth spurt in the Emergency Department (ED), where the number of visits ballooned by 120 per cent. The McMaster Children’s Hospital ED is now the busiest in our HHS family of hospitals.
As busy as we are today, we’re also thinking ahead to how we’ll serve the next generation of children and youth. Over the last two years we’ve been working on a long-range plan for all of Hamilton Health Sciences, called Our Healthy Future. The plan forecasts the services we’ll provide, and the facilities we’ll need, over the next 20 years.
“It seems like yesterday we were celebrating an official designation as Ontario’s newest children’s hospital; now, our 30th anniversary is only a year away.”
We have a bold and exciting vision for McMaster Children’s Hospital. Over the next 20 years we will see an increase of 1.2 million children in Canada, which equals the current population of Manitoba! So we know the growth we’ve seen will continue as the population of Hamilton and surrounding areas continues to rise. Although our services are by no means limited to inpatient care, let’s look at our projected bed counts as a simple example of predicted growth: today we have 161 Children’s Hospital beds and in 20 years we expect to need 231.
So, when we look down the road, we envision a new facility that is designed specifically for the needs of children and their families, and including women’s health services such as our high-risk obstetrics program. We see this new facility being located adjacent to the Hamilton General Hospital campus.
There are many reasons why this location would be ideal – expectant mothers who need acute care services will have them immediately at hand, while children and their parents will benefit from close proximity to our beautiful new Ron Joyce Children’s Health Centre, with its extensive list of outpatient programs for children and youth with special needs.
“Best of all, we’ll have room to grow and develop.”
Best of all, we’ll have room to grow and develop. Our current location at McMaster University Medical Centre, where we share space with the university, just can’t handle the long term needs we foresee. I’m excited about our vision for the future of our Children’s Hospital and I look forward to sharing more information as planning continues.