Planning for new Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus begins with $3M grant

The former site of the Sir John Carling building is now the leading candidate for the Ottawa Hospital's new Civic Campus.

With the debate over where to put the new Civic hospital finally settled, planning for the new site has begun. Monday, the provincial government handed over $3 million to begin the first of four phases of planning.

“The first stage of planning is to go back and look at all of our program requirements again,” said Cameron Love, Chief Operating Officer at the Ottawa Hospital. “We have to go back and identify what the program requirements are, what the volumes will be, what are the key future technically advancements, how they will operate in the future.”

The entire planning process is expected to take five years with another five years scheduled for construction, according to Love. The next stage is expected to include traffic and parking studies as well.

It has been two years of back and forth on the site location. In 2014, the Conservative government offered the hospital 60 acres on the Central Experimental Farm. Enter the Federal Liberals who asked the National Capital Commission to look at 12 sites and recommend the best one. The NCC chose Tunney’s Pasture as the first choice, but no one else was on board. After days of open revolt, the federal government said it would allow the new hospital to be built at the site of the former Sir John Carling building on December 2nd.

With the controversy beginning to settle – the Ottawa Hospital is looking forward. Hospital CEO Dr. Jack Kitts announcing it will be a 21^st century hospital.

“This is a new standard of care where patients have their own rooms, and importantly their own bathrooms. This is proven to reduce the spread of infection,” Kitts said. “The hospital will also be more responsive to the critically ill patients,” he added.

He said it will feature the latest technologies and an innovative design to attract the best medical minds.