$100-million Children’s Treatment Centre to be built in lower city

Hamiltons new $100-million Childrens Treatment Centre will be built next to the General Hospital on Wellington Street North, in an area of the city hospital administrators say is one of Hamiltons most vulnerable neighbourhoods.

McMaster Childrens Hospital officials made the surprise announcement Tuesday that the five-storey, state-of-the-art building would not be erected at the Chedoke site of Hamilton Health Sciences on the west Mountain, as originally planned.

Dr. Peter Fitzgerald, president of the childrens hospital, said after further consideration, administrators realized they didnt necessarily have to construct the facility where the services are being offered now. They decided to consider a wider range of possibilities.

We started being introspective, he said. We stepped back ... and wondered, What is the best location for all of Hamilton and the region?

Fitzgerald noted the lower city site is surrounded by neighbourhoods identified in The Spectators Code Red series as having high rates of poverty that went hand in hand with poor health.

Last summer, Laurel Broten, who was Ontarios minister of children and youth services at the time, announced Hamilton Health Sciences would receive full funding for the building that would replace four rundown Chedoke sites that house programs for young people.

The 170,000-square-foot treatment centre featuring an outdoor track, a therapeutic playground, physiotherapy space and a motion lab will be built on Wellington, just north of Barton Street East on Hamilton Health Sciences-owned property now being used for parking.

Colleen Fotheringham, director of autism, child and youth mental health and developmental pediatrics and rehabilitation, says the new facility will handle 70,000 visits a year. She expects numbers will increase slightly at the new location because it is more accessible by public transportation than the Chedoke site.

Construction is to begin in 2014 with completion anticipated in 2016.

The facility will house outpatient services, and be the base for in-home and community services, autism spectrum disorders, child and youth mental health, developmental pediatrics and rehabilitation programs, and prosthetics and orthotics.

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$100-million Children’s Treatment Centre to be built in lower city