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Upgrades will provide ‘extraordinary enhancements’ to patient care at the Grace

It’s no secret that many people experience some level of anxiety prior to undergoing a surgical procedure.

A planned $2 million upgrade to Grace Hospital’s minimally invasive operating room suite could go a long way in helping to reduce some of that anxiousness patients may be feeling in the days leading up to surgery.

Work to upgrade and expand capacity in the Winnipeg hospital’s minimally invasive operating room area is expected to begin this spring.

That work will include completely re-outfitting the hospital’s existing minimally invasive operating room used for general surgeries with the very latest high-tech instrumentation including new lighting, scopes and monitoring equipment. In addition, an existing general operating room will be transformed into a second minimally invasive suite that will double Grace’s capacity for minimally invasive general surgeries.

“This will be an extraordinary enhancement of patient care for our surgery patients,” says Jon Einarson, executive director of the Grace Hospital Foundation, the not-for-profit organization that raises funds to enhance patient care at the hospital.

“It is really the gold standard to do minimally invasive surgeries. By doubling our capacity, that means that many more people are going to benefit from procedures that are safer, have faster recovery times and less chance of infection. Those are all pivotal things when it comes to surgery.”

The Grace Hospital performs more than 8,000 surgical procedures in its operating theatres each year.

About 27 per cent (or 2,000) of the surgeries currently performed at the hospital are minimally invasive surgeries which includes appendectomies, gall bladder removals, hernia repairs, prostate resections and gynecological surgeries such as hysterectomies. The benefits of minimally invasive surgery include less pain, reduced risk of infection, faster recovery time and shorter hospital stays compared to traditional open surgery.

Work to expand and upgrade Grace Hospital’s minimally invasive operating room suites is scheduled to begin May 1, 2026 and is expected to take four months to complete. To accommodate construction, existing MIS equipment will be shifted to an alternate operating room suite, meaning that no surgeries will have to be canceled as a result.

In addition to increasing the number of minimally invasive surgeries that will be performed at the Grace, the upgrades will also boost overall capacity at the facility since many of those patients will be able to return home much sooner.

One of the interesting aspects of the project is that it was funded entirely by the Grace Hospital Foundation.

“This was the hospital dreaming its best dream and us as the foundation and our donors catching the wave of that dream and we made something special happen that might not have otherwise,” Einarson says.