Expanding Critical Care Capacity

$125 million investment will help immediately add over 500 critical care and high intensity medicine beds to hospitals in areas with high rates of COVID-19 transmission

Our PC government is using every tool at our disposal to support our hospitals as they respond to COVID-19.

The province is providing up to $125 million to immediately add over 500 critical care and high intensity medicine beds to hospitals in areas with high rates of COVID-19 transmission. This is in addition to the more than 3,100 beds to increase capacity in the hospital sector and help with occupancy pressures caused by COVID-19.

A portion of the funding will be used to temporarily transition Mackenzie Health’s Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital into a systemwide resource supporting the province’s COVID-19 response when the new hospital is scheduled to open on February 7, 2021. Initially, Mackenzie Health’s Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital will provide a total of 185 beds, including over 35 critical care beds and 150 general medicine beds, which will support non-critical patients from other hospitals and alleviate hospital capacity pressures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

These initiatives will help relieve pressures on nearby hospitals due to rapid increases in hospitalization and ICU occupancy rates as a result of the virus.

Once COVID-19 capacity pressures have stabilized, the new hospital will provide care and services to patients from across the western York Region as originally planned.