Mackenzie Health celebrated the substantial completion of the new Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital, the first new hospital to be built in Ontario’s York Region in the last 30 years.
The milestone signals the completion of the bulk of construction on the project and the start of months of work ahead to ensure the hospital is ready to provide patient care.
When it opens in early 2021, Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital will double access to care for the communities of Vaughan, King and Richmond Hill, and add necessary capacity to the health care system.
With the addition of Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital, Mackenzie Health will offer full-service emergency departments and medicine and surgery programs at two hospitals to help alleviate the ever-growing pressure on resources in the health system. Some specialized care programs and services will be based at only one of the two hospitals — such as the Woman and Child program at Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital and the inpatient Rehabilitation and Complex Continuing Care programs at Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital.
Construction on Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital broke ground in October 2016. The project was delivered by Plenary Health, along with partners PCL Constructors Canada Inc., Stantec and Johnson Controls. The project reached substantial completion on August 26.
“On behalf of the Plenary Health team we are thrilled to hand the site over to Mackenzie Health so they can transform this smart building into a hospital,” said Kelly Wallace, vice-president and district manager, PCL Constructors Canada Inc. “The passionate pursuit of a shared vision motivated us to overcome any challenge, and I’d like to commend over 1,000 women and men whose commitment to safety enabled us to complete this hospital for the community during a global pandemic, with over three million hours worked without a lost time injury.”
Now begins the task of turning the building into a fully functional hospital so that it can safely open its doors to patients. This includes installing and testing thousands of pieces of equipment, training more than 3,000 staff across both sites, and developing and simulating a number of mock patient scenarios.
“In just a few short months’ time, the City of Vaughan will have its first hospital, and what a hospital it will be,” said Maurizio Bevilacqua, Mayor of Vaughan and Chair of the Mackenzie Health Foundation’s Ultimate fundraising campaign. “Our residents will have access to Canada’s first smart hospital with a team of expert nurses and physicians providing the ultimate in care.”
To date, the provincial government has invested $1.3 billion for construction of the project. An additional $178 million has been raised from the community to date as part of Mackenzie Health Foundation’s $250 million Ultimate campaign.
