KENORA — By Cheryl O’Flaherty’s reckoning, construction of a new Kenora hospital could begin in about three years.
“We’re waiting for approval from the government to move to the next phase, which is Stage 2 in detailed design as well as the tendering of the construction documents,” O’Flaherty, president and CEO of Lake of the Woods District Hospital, told Dougall Media this week.
That stage typically takes about three years to complete, she said.
“So once we get approval, which we hope will be sometime in 2025, it’ll be three years after that that phase would happen, and once that phase is completed, then shovels would go in the ground.”
Getting a green light from the province is taking “a little bit longer than we had hoped,” she said.
“But we’re very optimistic that we would move forward very quickly (once approval is granted) and with any capital project looking for savings of time, because time savings mean financial savings.”
The Kenora hospital is part of the All Nations Health Partners, a group of Indigenous, municipal and health-care leaders striving to build an All Nations Hospital in the lakeside city.
Kenora Chiefs Advisory (KCA), another All Nations partner, recently acquired 118 acres of land on which to build the new hospital, a long-term care facility and other components of a comprehensive health-care campus.
The new hospital campus will be located on 30 of those 118 acres, O’Flaherty said.
It will have 81 beds just like the current hospital, but many other features will be bigger and better, she said.
O’Flaherty said the new hospital’s features will include “large outpatient departments to handle a larger outpatient population,” as well as wider hallways, more family rooms and private meeting rooms.
As well, all patient rooms will be private rooms with their own private bathrooms – and the campus will include “outbuildings that would support Indigenous healing,” including a sweat lodge and a healing lodge.
KCA senior adviser Joe Barnes said the 160-bed Wiigwas Elder and Senior Care facility planned as a hospital neighbour will replace the current 92-bed Wiigwas facility.
Preliminary design for the new Wiigwas centre is done and “we’re waiting for the approvals” from the province, he said.
O’Flaherty said a modern new hospital will help with physician recruitment.
“Most doctors want to work in a bright shiny new building with top-of-the-line medical equipment, and that will absolutely function as a draw for physicians to come and work in Kenora.”
The province committed to building a hospital in Kenora back in April 2024.
