A dedicated pandemic hospital will be opening just north of Toronto in a matter of weeks, as health care centres in the region struggle to cope with surging
COVID-19 infections.
In what appears to be the first of its kind in Canada, the Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital will be devoted to treating COVID-19 patients when it opens its doors in early February
. It will also be used to manage overflow from other hospitals, taking in uninfected patients to free up beds for COVID-19 cases.
The facility, which was scheduled to open as a second site in the Mackenzie Health network on Feb. 7, was to be the first new hospital – not replacing an old one – built in Ontario in three decades. But with COVID-19′s second wave battering the Greater Toronto Area, pushing capacity to the point where doctors have been openly warning that they are on the brink of having to triage sick patients, the province approached Mackenzie’s leadership team about using the site solely for pandemic response.
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