Durham's new hospital goes to north Whitby. Right pick?

Durham has one full-service regional hospital in Oshawa, a smaller one in Ajax-Pickering, community hospitals in Bowmanville and Port Perry, and a population that has grown faster than any of them.

The answer is a new hospital. In 2024 an independent panel picked a site in north Whitby, fifty acres south of Highway 407, west of the 412 and east of Lake Ridge Road, and the province confirmed it in August of that year as part of a multi-phase redevelopment of Lakeridge Health, with more than $12 million in planning grants, 300 additional beds to be distributed across the system, and expansions promised at the existing campuses in Bowmanville, Oshawa, Whitby, Ajax and Pickering. The hope is to have it open within ten years.

Ten years is the argument. So is the map: north Whitby is the geographic centre of the region and a long way from the lakeshore towns where most of the people are. The site is the one the panel chose, and the question of whether it was the right one is not going to stop being asked until the doors open.

Sources: Town of Whitby, a new hospital in Whitby · Durham Radio News, the panel chooses north Whitby · Durham Radio News, the province confirms it · Lakeridge Health Foundation, the new Whitby hospital