Six months after ‘groundbreaking’, Bramptonians still have no news on Peel Memorial Phase 2—update to come ‘later this fall’

The patience of Bramptonians is wearing thin after more than a decade of waiting for Peel Memorial to become a full-service hospital.

How much longer will they have to wait for that promise to become reality? 

In 2019, William Osler Health System which manages Peel Memorial, Brampton Civic and Etobicoke General Hospital, said the expansion of Peel Memorial into a full-service hospital was between five and eight years away. Six years later, it appears that is still the case, with a contractor yet to be selected and construction yet to begin. 

Adding to the frustration is the failure of Osler to secure a deal with the PC government for a second full-service hospital, which Brampton desperately needs. Memorial’s expansion will only deliver a relief facility, without acute care and limited emergency room function.

William Osler officials told The Pointer residents will get an update “later this fall” when it will announce the contractor chosen to build the long-awaited Phase-2 expansion. 

Brampton Civic, the city’s only full-service hospital, consistently operates over-capacity, pushing patients into unconventional spaces for treatment. 

Premier Doug Ford has long promised to fix the hallway healthcare crisis in Brampton and has made election promises to the city’s voters, but has failed to follow through. 

Data from 2019 showed Brampton Civic operated at 101 percent to 106 percent capacity throughout the year, well beyond the recommended standard of care of 85 percent capacity. 

A Freedom of Information request by The Pointer in 2019 revealed that 3,035 patients had to be treated in hallways and other makeshift spaces inside Brampton Civic the year prior because of chronic overcrowding. Data provided by Osler under an FOI request showed in 2012 there were 1,014 patients who had to be treated in similar inappropriate spaces inside Civic.

The problem has not gone away. Data show that on average last year, 121 people were being treated in unconventional spaces at Civic, every day.

While Bramptonians continue to struggle, the only messaging they receive from provincial government officials is during election time. 

On March 28 Ford, Mayor Patrick Brown and other officials gathered for a groundbreaking ceremony at the Peel Memorial site, and the Premier vowed the PR event marked a “transformational step forward” in Brampton healthcare. A Request for Proposals (RFP) to secure a contractor for Memorial’s Phase-2 expansion didn’t close until a month later. 

Since then, neither the Province nor William Osler have provided any indication of where the project stands. There are no construction timelines, no updates on the provincial budget or the local share amount that needs to be provided by the City of Brampton; no money was committed to the project in Ontario’s 2025 budget.

On Monday, September 22, Health Minister Sylvia Jones held a press conference in Brampton. During her announcement about expanding primary care teams, she provided no update on the Peel Memorial project and provided little information when asked by The Pointer about the long-awaited plan.

When asked why money was not included in the 2025 budget for the Peel Memorial expansion project, Jones said: "We, as the province of Ontario, obviously have budgeted and are prepared to fund, as we do with all hospital capital builds, 90 percent of the build," adding the government would not release the budget figure until a contractor was chosen.

Despite her claim that the PCs “have budgeted” for the project, the money is not included in the 2025 budget document. 

During the press conference regarding the expansion of primary care in Ontario by launching the next calls for proposals to create 75 primary care teams across the province, Jones refused to reveal the budget allocated specifically for Peel Memorial’s expansion, claiming doing so would “influence the bidding process.” Yet, Ford and other officials were at the site for a photo opp in March with shovels in hand, trying to suggest that ground was being broken to start the project, even though Jones now admits a builder hasn’t even been selected.

"I have full confidence, and I am sure that I would never be invited back to Brampton or to speak to any of my colleagues if we did not set aside that money. It is there. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that this hospital is built."

Minister of Health Sylvia Jones has consistently refused to say when the money to expand Peel Memorial will appear in the Government of Ontario’s budget.

(Government of Ontario)

Calling it a hospital is somewhat misleading. According to what Osler has released, the expansion will not include major wards such as surgery, trauma care, cancer or cardio treatment or other features of a full-service hospital supported by a 24/7 fully functioning emergency department. Instead, Brampton is not getting the 850 acute care beds local officials have called for to bring the city’s bed count closer to the provincial average (it currently has about a third the number of hospital beds per capita compared to Ontario’s overall figures). Osler has said the approximately 250 beds Memorial will get (it is currently an out-patient facility with no in-patient beds) are mostly going to be used for the offloading of patients from Civic who need longer term, non-acute recovery and care.

According to officials with Osler, “early construction is underway,” for Peel Memorial Phase-2 and the procurement process is in the “development phase.” It’s the same messaging the healthcare system has been providing for months. 

“One successful team will advance into the next step—the Development Phase—which includes finalizing project designs and scope and updating the project cost and timelines,” an Osler spokesperson explained. “Infrastructure Ontario (IO) and Osler will announce the identified team later this fall. The construction timeline and completion dates will be determined through the successful proponent’s schedule. As with all construction projects, dates are subject to change."

The Pointer earlier reported that four companies were bidding in the RFP phase to expand Peel Memorial: Progress Peel Health Solutions, Pomerleau Inc., EllisDon Corporation and Bird Design-Build Construction Inc..

 A “groundbreaking” announcement for Peel Memorial Phase-2 in March was made before the project even had a contractor to carry out the construction. One still has not been chosen.

(Government of Ontario)

While the Province will cover 90 percent of the cost to expand Peel Memorial, the City of Brampton and William Osler are responsible for the remaining 10 percent, which is estimated to be $125 million. The Pointer reached out to the City’s media relations department to find out how much of the City’s share has been secured and how much of that has been transferred to Osler. There has been no response. 

The provincial government’s continued delays to properly fund Brampton’s healthcare system have left residents frustrated.

"It's unacceptable. This is not a top-secret military project. This is a taxpayer-funded project that affects everyone in this community,” Chris Bejnar, co-founder of the local advocacy group, Citizens For a Better Brampton, said. “We're approaching a decade of planning and very slow progress in relation to other health networks. In other jurisdictions, this whole process has happened much quicker.”

In this year’s budget, which the Ford government passed in May and called “A Plan to Protect Ontario,” it outlined $56 billion over the next decade to enhance province-wide healthcare infrastructure, including $43 billion in capital grants to support 50 hospitals and the addition of 3,000 beds across Ontario.

The only mention in the budget document of Brampton’s long-awaited Peel Memorial Phase-2 expansion appears in a section discussing the province’s 10-year capital plan. There is no line item for 2025 indicating any money is being allocated this year for Memorial, even though it was part of the PC election platform, which vowed to improve the city’s crumbling health infrastructure by increasing capacity.

City of Brampton officials, the Opposition NDP and healthcare advocates have called on Ford to expand Memorial into an 850-bed full-service hospital with all the major clinical wards and services, including a 24/7 emergency room. Its current urgent care service is not open around the clock.

"Considering the fact that Brampton Civic Hospital went hundreds of millions of dollars over budget due to being built as a public-private partnership with William Osler Health System in the early 2000s, it's not surprising that Ontario's government is holding information on the Peel Memorial Expansion close to the vest, but it is very disappointing," said Janine Herrmann-McLeod, co-chair of the Brampton-Caledon Health Coalition, who expressed deep frustration after the 2025 budget was released in May. “We should have had this hospital many years ago. We should have additional hospitals by now. We cannot allow it to be delayed, underfunded, or mismanaged, because it costs us our health and lives. It enrages me that they will not do better for Brampton, and having nowhere to go for healthcare is making people here, including myself, feel hopeless, desperate, and unsupported."

Brampton was promised a completed full-service second hospital two decades ago. Civic has long been described as the home of hallway healthcare in Ontario due to its lack of capacity in a city of 800,000 residents, many of whom are forced to go elsewhere for hospital treatment.

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