Photo shows traffic at Hurontario Street and The Queensway, right next to Mississauga Hospital, during work on the Hazel McCallion Line light-rail transit route in 2024. (Photo: Metrolinx)

Project leaders overseeing construction of what will be the largest hospital in Canada when it opens in Mississauga in 2034 have listened to residents’ concerns regarding transparency and other issues, the city councillor for the area says.

Mississauga Ward 7 Coun. Dipika Damerla said in an online notice to constituents on Monday their interest, attendance at public meetings and feedback the past several months related to ongoing construction at The Queensway/Hurontario Street site have paid off.

“Because of your involvement and advocacy, those concerns were heard,” the councillor said in her online notice, sent out the same day another virtual town hall-style meeting was being held. “As a direct result of community input, Trillium Health Partners (which oversees Mississauga’s hospitals) has made meaningful improvements at the site including the installation of viewing portholes (in sound wall bordering the construction site), enhanced lighting (on pedestrian pathway) and the use of cameras to improve transparency and safety. These changes happened because you showed up, spoke up and shared your experiences.”

Damerla added that “as construction continues, it is important that this dialogue does not stop.”

Monday’s virtual town hall provided those who took part with updates on upcoming phases of work on The Peter Gilgan Mississauga Hospital, a $13.9-billion “state-of-the-art” health-care centre that will rise up 22 storeys on the same site as the current Mississauga Hospital.

The latest public session also filled people in on expected impacts to the community as construction continues and allowed attendees to give feedback to and ask questions of members of the project team, Damerla said.

Ward 7 Coun. Dipika Damerla urges residents to stay involved and voice any concerns they have with the new hospital project in Mississauga.

“This town hall is an important opportunity to continue shaping how this significant project moves forward in our neighbourhood,” she added.

The councillor said earlier that as work continues on the 2.8 million-sq.-ft. hospital, which will be three times the size of the current hospital, noise, vibration and air quality readings will be monitored in real time by project leaders. 

Those readings, she added, will be shared with hospital officials “so we can respond quickly if levels change or concerns arise.”

The focus, Damerla said in January, “is on addressing issues quickly, maintaining safety and being transparent when concerns arise.”

Construction began on the new hospital last June and it’s being built on the same site as the current Mississauga Hospital, which first opened at that location in 1958.

When completed in 2033 (and open to patients one year later), the new hospital will also house within it the Shah Family Hospital for Women and Children, to be the first such medical facility in Ontario.

Rendering of what The Peter Gilgan Mississauga Hospital will look like when completed. (Image: Trillium Health Partners)

Infrastructure Ontario is in charge of the new hospital project, which is moving forward as construction of the Hazel McCallion Line light-rail transit route continues on Hurontario Street only steps from the hospital.

A source of unease for those who live near Hurontario Street and The Queensway, just north of the QEW, is the ongoing work on the Hazel McCallion Line, at four years and counting, and how that may combine in a possibly troublesome way with major construction at Mississauga Hospital.

The LRT work regularly shuts down Hurontario Street lanes to traffic while work on what will eventually be the biggest hospital in Canada will bring hundreds of trucks — delivery, work and construction vehicles — each day to the site during the “peak construction period.”


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