This is an opinion column by Lynn Guerriero, President and CEO; Dr. Rafi Setrak, Chief of Emergency Medicine; and Dr. Jennifer Robert, Chief of Primary Care, originally published in the St. Catharines Standard, Niagara Falls Review and Welland Tribune.
Niagara Health’s hospital in Welland is critical to our future as we transform how we deliver care across the region.
The Welland hospital has been at the heart of the Niagara community for more than 60 years and it will continue to play an important role for patients across Niagara for generations to come.
We are committed not only to keeping our Welland hospital open, but also to modernizing and improving it through a major redevelopment project on the same site, with a potential for expanded services.
Niagara Health is transforming to bring together our resources and expertise at three cornerstone hospitals in St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Welland. We are about halfway towards our goal of building the infrastructure we need to care for patients from across Niagara. We completed the Marotta Family Hospital in St. Catharines in 2013, while the South Niagara Hospital in Niagara Falls is under construction and scheduled to open in 2028.
The future Welland Hospital will provide 24/7 emergency services and have more than 90 complex care beds. It will feature outpatient programs and clinics, including Mental Health and Addictions, Orthopedics, Plastics, Chronic Disease Management and Geriatric Services. The site will offer dialysis, and a wide range of diagnostic imaging services, such as CT, X-Ray, ultrasound, mammography, stress testing, ECG and lab services. The site will also perform same-day surgical procedures such as cataract surgery and will be a centre of excellence in eye care.
Our preliminary vision for our Welland site is only the beginning. In addition to a modern hospital, we know there is much more we can do to create a “campus of care” to meet the needs of the growing community. We truly believe that enhancing access to comprehensive primary care in the community is the path to making Niagara healthier. Niagara residents suffer from more chronic conditions – such as diabetes, asthma, heart disease and COPD – than the provincial average and evidence shows those conditions are best treated in the community by primary care providers alongside other services like public health and supportive housing for seniors.
As we build in Niagara Falls, we are also busy implementing plans for multiple projects on our Welland site, while continuing to plan for a long-term redeveloped hospital. The projects have already been supported by Ontario’s Ministry of Health, under our current Master Plan. We are working through the necessary government approval processes to get our projects in Welland underway. Some highlights of these projects include:
- Redevelopment of a section of Welland Hospital to support the transition of additional complex care beds to the Welland, along with renovations to make the space more patient and family friendly.
- Relocating the Provincial Residential Addictions Treatment Facility from the current Port Colborne Site to the Welland Hospital site.
- Redevelopment of Welland Extended Care Unit (Long-Term Care).
There’s room at our Welland campus for partners to provide community-based health and social services that would make it easier and faster for people to access much-needed services.
We are excited at the possibilities of what the Welland campus of care can become.
While each of our three hospitals will have areas of expertise, they will work together as part of a seamless system of care. Emergency services will be carefully coordinated to ensure patients get the right level of care as quickly as possible regardless of which hospital they arrive at. There will be no wrong door.
We have an opportunity to create something truly special together in Welland. We will continue to seek input from community members and partner organizations to help shape our long-term planning and determine what community-based services might also be available at our Welland campus.
