TORONTO -- A mobile field hospital with 100 patient beds will operate out of the parking lot of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre as soon as April to help alleviate third-wave pandemic pressure on Toronto’s intensive care units.
CTV News Toronto has learned that one of two mobile medical centres promised to the Greater Toronto Area by the federal government is currently being set up in a now-empty surface staff parking lot at Sunnybrook’s Bayview Avenue campus.
The field hospital, made by Weatherhaven Global Resources, is designed for the frontline fight against COVID-19, and features ventilators, oxygen machines, portable x-ray machines, and even a negative-pressure system that cleans air every two minutes.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised two of the speciality units to the GTA on Jan. 22, in order to provide up to 200 additional beds to hospital systems hard-hit by COVID-19.
“Wave three, I believe, is upon us,” Dr. Michael Warner, an intensive care unit physician, said Tuesday. “ICU numbers increased today, case numbers are rising.”
Weatherhaven was given a federal contract to manufacture the mobile hospitals during the first wave of the pandemic—they were then set up in Brockville, Ont., as a pre-deployment exercise in December 2020.
The federal government had promised that the mobile units would be available to the GTA until May 1, depending on case load and ICU capacity in the province.
