Canada’s biggest hospital will be in Mississauga, and construction starts now

Construction on what will be the largest hospital in Canada starts Wednesday morning in Mississauga.

When it opens to its first patients in 2033, The Peter Gilgan Mississauga Hospital is expected to be without rival anywhere in the country at some 2.8 million square feet in size and 22 storeys in height.

What’s been described as a state-of-the-art health-care centre that will cost an estimated $13.9 billion to build will also house the 200,000-sq.-ft. Shah Family Hospital for Women and Children.

That facility will become Ontario’s first health-care centre to focus exclusively on the well-being of women and children, hospital officials in Mississauga said earlier. 

The new Mississauga hospital is being built on the same site as the current hospital at Hurontario Street and The Queensway, where it’s been situated since first opening in 1958, and the official groundbreaking takes place Wednesday morning.

(Photo: Office of the Auditor General of Ontario 2024 annual report)

Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Deputy Premier and Health Minister Sylvia Jones will be joined by hospital officials, Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish and others to mark the occasion and speak about the new health-care facility.

“The design triples the size of — and will replace — the existing Mississauga Hospital to meet the needs of one of the country’s most diverse and rapidly growing communities,” Trillium Health Partners officials said in a media advisory on Tuesday. “Designed to extend beyond traditional hospital walls, Trillium Health Partners’ future model of care will integrate digital technology, data analytics, advanced medical technology and community insights to deliver more proactive, personalized and coordinated care.”

Trillium Health Partners president and CEO Karli Farrow, shown here at an earlier Mississauga city council meeting, will be on hand for Wednesday’s groundbreaking ceremony.

Trillium Health Partners is the umbrella health-care organization that operates Mississauga and Credit Valley hospitals in addition to the Queensway Health Centre on the Mississauga-Etobicoke border.

Last month, Mississauga city council decided reluctantly — but unanimously — that local taxpayers would kick in $390 million as part of a local contribution to the new hospital spearheaded by Trillium Health Partners.

While in full agreement the new hospital is desperately needed, councillors expressed frustration at what they view as yet another example of Mississauga taxpayers being unfairly burdened by a government system that chronically underfunds and overtaxes Canada’s seventh-largest city.

Among other things, the new hospital:

• will, through its construction, create some 3,000 construction jobs and contribute about $1 billion to the local economy over the next 10 years
• will be the largest community-based teaching hospital in Canada at 2.8 million square feet and with 950 beds and 23 operating rooms
• will host an anticipated 1.7 million patient visits annually
• will add 2,400 health-care support staff and some 400 doctors to its ranks