Kingston needs a new hospital. Not a fresh coat of paint on Kingston General, and not another wing bolted onto a building that’s been patched since the 1800s. It needs a modern regional hospital big enough for everyone in southeastern Ontario who depends on it. The good news is that a lot of people are already working on it. The rest of us need to help them get it done. And remember the countless hours I have spent donating my time in hospitals over the years working on my dissertation.
Where the new hospital stands right now
Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC) has dropped its old plan to keep expanding the downtown Kingston General site. It now plans a brand-new hospital complex in Kingston’s west end, on land the City has set aside in the Clogg’s Road business park near Highway 401. The plan is that one day the new campus would take over most of what KGH and Hotel Dieu do today: emergency, surgery, clinics, research and a new Southeastern Ontario cancer centre.
The catch: it is still in planning and the Province hasn’t fully funded it. That’s where the community comes in.
Everyone pulling in the same direction
- Kingston City Council voted unanimously to ask neighbouring municipalities to lobby Queen’s Park for full funding and priority, because this is not just Kingston’s hospital. It serves the whole region.
- Belleville and other regional councils have endorsed the west-end campus plan.
- KHSC staff and physicians are working on the plans, including emergency department teams who are designing the space they’ll work in.
- Hospital foundations and donors raise the local share that every Ontario hospital build needs.
- You. Write to your MPP. Tell the Minister of Health that Kingston’s hospital belongs on the funded list. Show up when council discusses it. Donate if you can. Talk about it.
Big public buildings take years to plan and cost a fortune. If you want a feel for how fast construction budgets climb, here’s what large specialised buildings cost to put up these days. A hospital is the most demanding building of all: power, cooling, backup systems and space to grow. Even just keeping a building full of machines cool is a budget line of its own, and hospitals are full of machines that cannot fail.
Pain doesn’t wait, so neither should care
Here’s the part that matters most to me. Physical illness and injury, especially anything that causes real pain and suffering, can’t be put on a waiting list in your head. A kidney stone, a broken bone, a bad back, chest pain, a child with a high fever: in every one of those cases, each hour in a waiting-room chair is another hour of hurting.
Ontario Health’s own numbers show the average wait for a first assessment by an emergency doctor is under two hours across the province, and about two and a half hours at Kingston General. Averages hide the bad nights, though. Plenty of people in pain wait four hours or more before a professional even looks at them, and that’s not acceptable. Nobody in pain should wait over four hours to see a doctor.
Fixing that takes two things together:
- Enough doctors, nurses and specialists: training them, recruiting them and keeping them in the region.
- Enough facilities: emergency bays, operating rooms, imaging, and beds so admitted patients aren’t stuck in emergency hallways.
A new hospital without staff is an empty building. Staff without space are burnt out in hallways. We need both, and we need them on a timeline measured in years, not decades. Long-term infrastructure decisions outlast every politician who signs them, which is why getting infrastructure right the first time matters so much. And a hospital has to keep running when everything else is down, so keeping the lights on when the grid is stretched is not a side issue.
If you’re struggling right now
If your mental health is suffering, please don’t wait. In Canada you can call or text 9-8-8 any time, day or night, to reach the Suicide Crisis Helpline. For local services in Ontario, dial 2-1-1. If you’re in danger, call 9-1-1.
Talk to me about it
If you run into me at the airpark, come say hi and let’s talk about what we can do to get Kingston its hospital. I’ve spoken directly with Elon Musk in the past, and I’ll keep using every conversation and connection I have to push for things that matter to real people. A hospital that sees you before your pain gets worse is one of them.
(Unrelated, but if you like building things: I’ve been working on a tool that prices out a whole AI server room for you.)
Sources
- Kingstonist: West-end hospital will eventually replace KGH and Hotel Dieu
- City of Kingston: Expanded regional hospital access on the horizon
- Kingston Daily: Council pushes region to lobby province on hospital rebuild
- Kingstonist: Belleville endorses Kingston’s regional hospital plan
- Ontario Health: Time Spent in Emergency Departments