![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/old-hospital.jpeg\")
The old Western Memorial Regional Hospital is being turned into a multipurpose health-care centre. (Colleen Connors\/CBC )<\/p>\nThe old Western Memorial Regional Hospital is being turned into a multipurpose health-care centre. (Colleen Connors\/CBC )<\/p>\n
A former hospital on Newfoundland’s west coast is being repurposed to\u00a0help ease the burden on the province’s health-care system, says the health minister.<\/p>\n
The province recently announced the former Western Memorial Regional Hospital is being turned into the Corner Brook Community Health Centre, and\u00a0will\u00a0house a new family care team, a\u00a0transitional care unit and long-term care beds.<\/p>\n
“We’re working towards re-utilizing that space to its maximum potential,” Health Minister Krista Lynn Howell\u00a0told CBC.<\/p>\n
She said extensive work has been done to the old hospital to get it ready for its new role, including electrical upgrades and space configuration, like creation of private rooms, a lounge area and a dining area to serve patients.<\/p>\n
“It’s been given a new life.”<\/p>\n
It comes months after the new\u00a0Corner Brook hospital opened but an overflow of patients, some who no longer required urgent medical care or were waiting to get into longer-term care, had to be housed in the former hospital<\/a>.<\/p>\n Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services had already announced plans to renovate two floors of what’s now known as the Corner Brook Community Health Care Centre.<\/p>\n Howell said family care teams include physicians, nurses, physiotherapists and\u00a0occupational therapists.<\/p>\n “We’re certainly excited to see that ready to roll in Corner Brook. And we know that this provides access to individuals who might not otherwise have had a primary care provider.”<\/p>\n She also urged people to register with Patient Connect N.L. if they don’t have a primary care provider.<\/p>\n “Then we can have a better picture of the folks in the province who are still waiting to be assigned to a family care team or a provider,” Howell said, adding it will also give them access to virtual care.<\/p>\n Transitional care unit<\/p>\n The news comes after CBC\u00a0reported in May on\u00a0a jump in people waiting for alternate\u00a0care beds<\/a>.<\/p>\n Howell said the province is aware there are people in hospital beds who are waiting to get into long-term care or waiting for rehabilitation services and are waiting in acute care.<\/p>\n “We’re endeavouring now to build a hub in Corner Brook of 30 long-term care beds and 15 transitional care beds, where individuals who would have normally been in a hospital will now be able to go into this space and receive the type of care that’s most specific to them,” she said.<\/p>\n The new space will also free up needed acute care beds in hospitals, she added,\u00a0further helping the province\u00a0tackle the problem around available space and waitlists.<\/p>\n Howell said she’d have to wait until the\u00a0upgrades to the old hospital are completed to know the total cost.<\/p>\n Download our free CBC News app<\/a> to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our daily headlines newsletter here<\/a>. Click here to visit our landing page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The old Western Memorial Regional Hospital is being turned into a multipurpose health-care centre. (Colleen Connors\/CBC ) A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-41229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/krista-lynn-howell.JPG\")
Newfoundland and Labrador Health Minister Krista Lynn Howell says the old Western Memorial Regional Hospital is getting ‘a new life.’ (Ryan Cooke\/CBC)<\/p>\n