The provincial government announced last week that Toronto Grace Health Centre would receive all the funding it needed for a complete overhaul.
The hospital, which caters to the chronically and terminally ill and is run by the
Salvation Army, has 119 beds, a number it will maintain after the renovation. But significantly, according to Glen Murray, the Ontario Minister for Research and Innovation who announced the funding, "It's keeping all 119 beds active" throughout the renovation.
"Basically, it's a rebuild for the entire building," Murray says of the Bloor and Church hospital, built in
1909, and the setting of Allan King's 2003 documentary,
Dying at Grace. "On the concrete skeleton of the old building, it will be rebuilt floor by floor into a brand new hospital." According to Murray, the hospital has set aside some money of its own � equivalent to roughly 10 per cent of the cost of the rebuild, which staff at the hospital are referring to as a "decanting" -- to begin preparations immediately before sending out the request for proposals for the project next summer.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Glen Murray
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