It’s been a long time coming, but the sod was officially turned on the construction of the new Groves Memorial Hospital on Wednesday.
Officials from various levels of government joined Groves staff and area citizens at an official ceremony.
The new hospital is expected to be completed in the spring of 2020.
Almost 20 years after plans for improving the existing hospital were brought forward, the new Groves will be located between Fergus and Elora on a 34-acre parcel of land just north of the Wellington County Museum.
“What an amazing community undertaking this has been,” said Wellington-Halton Hills MPP Ted Arnott, who has been in office through the entire process and dealt with five different Ministers of Health along the way.
“I promised early on that this hospital would not become a political football … that was not going to happen here.”
Arnott said the new hospital is the culmination of a lot of hard work by a lot of people.
“Let us resolve to continue to dig deep to support Groves in every way possible and together to build a hospital that our community has earned,” he said.
The project will total $144 million and will be a bigger and more modern version of the old Groves which remains open until the new one is built. The new facility will also include a helipad for easy helicopter transportation of patients when needed.
“This is a big deal,” said Guelph MPP Liz Sandals, representing Minister of Health Eric Hoskins who had a funeral to attend Wednesday and had to cancel plans to be in attendance.
“The hospital that you’re working in now just isn’t big enough to accommodate the growth in this community,” Sandals told Groves staff in attendance, “and it isn’t in keeping with the current standards of care.”
A new Groves Memorial Hospital began with plans to renovate the existing hospital in Fergus but 10 years ago plans changed to building a brand new facility.
An original $5 million contribution from the County of Wellington, which has since doubled, was used to buy the land the hospital will sit on.
“Having a new state-of-the-art health facility will not only help the township of Centre Wellington expand its health care facilities here, but it will also help the county’s health care industry and that’s an important part of our economic development,” said Wellington County Warden Dennis Lever.
Minister of Health Eric Hoskins was supposed to attend the event but had to attend a funeral on Wednesday.
