Our History

K-W Hospital was first established in 1895 as the Berlin-Waterloo Hospital. Seventy patients were cared for in its first year. The 30-bed facility had one operating room, a handful of nurses, and a dozen physicians. The hospital's School of Nursing opened the following year and trained more than 1400 nurses before closing 80 years later.

Freeport Hospital first began as a tuberculosis sanatorium. Following medical advances and altered treatment of tuberculosis after World War II, Freeport began admitting chronic care and rehabilitation patients. It was the first facility in the province to initiate a move into this direction of care. During the 1960s, the need for chronic care beds continued to grow resulting in the addition of more beds, and by 1970 the Freeport Sanatorium became Freeport Hospital.

While Grand River Hospital has a rich history of quality care-giving, we believe our future will be even more impressive. Your community hospital will provide new and expanded services to our rapidly growing community's health care needs. During the next few years, we look forward to offering the following:

• A new inpatient oncology unit with an increase of six patient beds
• A new ambulatory care centre
• A new mental health unit which includes, a crisis assessment facility, day hospital and child and adolescent inpatient psychiatry unit
• A new, spacious intensive care unit with an additional 8 patient beds
• A new brachytherapy surgical suite to treat appropriate cancer patients by administering radiation internally
• A new and expanded fracture clinic