Land Acknowledgement
Grand River Hospital acknowledges that the land on which we live and work today is located on the Haldimand Tract of 1784, a formally ratified agreement acknowledging six miles on either side of the Grand River as treaty territory belonging to Six Nations of the Grand River and is within the territory of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, and Chonnonton People. In this territory, Indigenous peoples continue to endure inequality, violence, and oppression due to colonialism.
This is magnified by the historical and ongoing widespread failure by settlers and institutions to uphold their responsibilities within the Dish With One Spoon wampum. Grand River Hospital acknowledges the enduring presence and deep traditional knowledge, laws and philosophies of the Indigenous Peoples with whom we share this land today, their achievements and their contributions to our community. We are committed to understanding the impact of settler colonialism on the Indigenous experience in order to envision and co-create collaborative, respectful paths together in mutuality and reciprocity.
Thank you to the Indigenous Employee Circle for this revised land acknowledgement.
ABOUT US Our Purpose
To rally the citizens of our communities to create world class health care right here.
About the Grand River Hospital Foundation
The Grand River Hospital Foundation engages its communities to inspire their support of the people, spaces, equipment and learning of Grand River Hospital programs, Through us the community funds the needs of 15 clinical programs at Grand River Hospital, one of Ontario’s largest community teaching hospitals. We organize these 15 clinical programs that include regional cancer and renal programs, critical care, emergency, pharmacy services, childbirth & children’s services, mental health & addiction services, medicine, surgery, medical imaging, laboratory medicine, stroke, rehabilitation, and complex continuing care into eight (8) Care Areas that we fund.
As a Foundation, we are preparing to support the Hospital not only with ongoing & regular equipment and program needs but also a significant new build, a new innovation health sciences centre for the Region of Waterloo and beyond, through the Building the Future of Care Together project, trailblazing with a very large fundraising “Community Share” goal as mandated by provincial rules on Hospital building projects.
In service and hospitality with our Guest Services team we actively serve guests of the hospital through activating the community by running the hospital volunteer program of more than 2000 active volunteers. These volunteers support many departments throughout the hospital, our Welcome spaces at the main entrances of both campuses and all over the community at events and with our partners.
Historical Impact Updates
Our Care Never Stops campaign and how this is helping the Hospital achieve their goals.
This year the Foundation works to support the Hospital’s long-term strategic plan with the Care Never Stops campaign. We quietly launched this campaign in April 2020 as a six-year comprehensive leadership campaign that represents our strategy to build public trust and engage our communities in preparation for the much larger, upcoming fundraising campaign for “Building the Future of Care Together.” In the Care Never Stops campaign, the Foundation defined eight distinct areas of care to encompass the many health services the Hospital offers. These eight Care Areas are how we organize our funding goals and measure the impact of our annual grants. Our goal is to bring our communities along with us by helping supporters like you better understand what we do and how you can help. Each coloured petal on our lotus represents a different area of care. This year we have proudly and publicly launched the Care Never Stops campaign during a week-long series of events from May 22 to May 28 called Care Never Stops Week. We engaged and inspired our entire community to join us in our vision of building a world-class health system in Waterloo Region. The Care Never Stops campaign celebrates and builds upon the strongest aspects of our health system, the aspects that are already world-class, as we work towards becoming a leader in health care. It empowers community leaders and brings them together to create the future of local health care, broadening our reach and rallying the citizens of our communities in support of world-class health care right here in a way that is galvanizing, compassionate, and galvanizing.
Care Never Stops Week, to engage and inspire our entire community to join us in our vision of building a world-class health system in Waterloo Region
Solving challenges in health care as we build a world-class health system will require innovation and collaboration across sectors and throughout our communities. That’s why Grand River Hospital and Foundation came together in the spring to host Care Never Stops Week, a week-long series of events that united our community in support of local health care, attracting more than 10,000 people.
- The week started with the announcement of the Foundation’s largest gift in support of health care in our communities from Ralph and Dorothy Kraft, community builders, innovators, and entrepreneurs, who opened the area’s first grocery superstore, Hiway Market, in 1952. which continues in an estate gift of over 15 million dollars to Grand River Hospital.
- And included Health Innovation Challenge, a 10-day event partnering with nearly 120 students from the University of Waterloo and Western University alongside expert mentors to learn, build, and create solutions that can have a real impact for healthcare workers and patients. Over the course of 10 days, teams worked to prepare a pitch for a panel of judges on one of the three problem areas: eliminating waiting rooms, better connecting patients to their health care providers throughout their care, and supporting the aging population and their families. With a goal of investing in young innovators and entrepreneurs while giving way to new ideas in the process, the Health Innovation Challenge also provided participating teams with the opportunity to win one of three $6,000 grand prizes. Winning solutions were Embrace, an app that helps connect the community to defend against perinatal depression and other challenges; Bed Connect, a bed inventory tech solution to help patient flow and eliminate wait times; and MediSync, a medical appointment scheduling and documentation application powered by machine learning. The Health Innovation Challenge was also the first challenge at Velocity that saw equal participation from men and women.
- We also celebrated the night shift with the official launch of the After Dark collection of souvenirs and wearables. This product collection and Adam SearlsDRONE LIGHT SHOW
- The Rally For Health honours the hard-working hospital team members and the work they do in the hours between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. to ensure Care Never Stops in our hospitals. All of the proceeds from the After Dark collection go towards supporting educational opportunities and team member well-being initiatives for night shift staff.
- Launched The Mural for Heroes, designed and painted by local artists, was unveiled during Care Never Stops Week at the Hospital's KW Campus, is a tribute to all of our local health care workers.
Waterloo Region has unique needs and requires new and renewed hospitals to continue providing high-quality patient care.
Grand River Hospital and St. Mary’s General Hospital continued shaping the joint proposal for “Building the Future of Care Together,” a critically important project for the future of health care in Waterloo Region, which has been put together based on consultations with Hospital team members, physicians, and community and health system partners, including Cambridge Memorial Hospital and the KW4 Ontario Health Team. This proposal includes building a new, state-of-the-art hospital in Kitchener-Waterloo, renewing and repurposing Grand River Hospital’s Kitchener-Waterloo Campus as an ambulatory and urgent care centre, and renewing the Hospital’s Freeport Campus for modernized and expanded rehabilitation capacity. All sites would be shared by both Grand River Hospital and St. Mary’s General Hospital.
While there were lessons to be learned about healthcare delivery from the COVID-19 pandemic, there are also unique attributes of Waterloo Region and its citizens that are important considerations to inform this plan from the KW4 Ontario Health Team 2021 Census Report.
- Waterloo Region is one of the fastest-growing and aging areas in Canada, at almost double the rate of both Ontario and Canada, and has a high population density, with only five census divisions having a higher population density.
- Population growth in Waterloo Region is projected to continue climbing quickly, rising to approximately 900,000 over the next 20 years — an increase of 45 per cent and over 2 million Ontarians by 2046.
- The population aged 75 and older will grow by 169 per cent by 2043.
- The percentage of the population in the KW4 — Kitchener, Waterloo, Wellesley, Wilmot, and Woolwich — that is made up of children age 14 and younger is 17.1 per cent, which is higher than that of both Ontario (15.8 per cent) and Canada (16.3 per cent).
Historically, Waterloo Region has also had far fewer hospital beds per capita than the average in Ontario and across Canada.
- Prior to the pandemic, Waterloo Region had 1.1 beds per 1,000 people, compared to the Ontario average of 1.4 beds and the Canadian average of 2.0.
- Our bed ratio is lower than any Organization for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD) member country. For example, Germany has an average of six beds per 1,000 people.
- We will need at least 515 additional hospital beds in the next 25 years to care for our communities and the broader region. Currently, our hospitals are already over capacity almost every day.
In addition, our communities have outgrown our aging hospital buildings.
- Parts of St. Mary’s General Hospital and Grand River Hospital are 50 to 100 years old. In 2024, St. Mary’s celebrates its 100 year anniversary.
- Aging buildings make it challenging to care for a growing number of patients efficiently and effectively.
Coupled with the uniqueness of the Waterloo Region seen in the KW4 Ontario Health Team census data, these are just some of the reasons our communities need “Building the Future of Care Together.” Our region requires new and renewed hospitals to continue providing high-quality patient care.