50 Years of Care at QCH
October 15, 2026
OTTAWA – October 15, 2026 – Queensway Carleton Hospital (QCH) is celebrating 50 years of caring for patients and families in Ottawa's west end and beyond.
The milestone is marked with a special anniversary celebration, bringing together current and former staff, physicians, volunteers, community leaders, donors, patients and families to reflect on five decades of care – and the community that helped shape this Hospital.
When QCH officially opened its doors in 1976, it was a 240-bed hospital built around four cornerstone programs: emergency care, medical and surgical care, mental health care, and geriatric care. It had been created to serve a west-end population of approximately 100,000 people.
Fifty years later, QCH serves more than half a million people each year and provides increasingly specialized and complex care to one of the fastest growing and aging areas of the region.
New programs and facilities have brought critical care, childbirth, cancer care, dialysis, advanced diagnostic imaging, complex geriatric care, rehabilitation, and expanded surgical services closer to home. QCH has also become increasingly connected to a wider regional health system, working with hospital and community partners to provide care that extends well beyond its original walls.
The hospital has cared for its community through major emergencies and periods of extraordinary pressure – from the 1998 ice storm, when QCH operated on backup generators while emergency volumes surged, to SARS, H1N1 and the COVID-19 pandemic. It has navigated health-system restructuring, rapid population growth, changing technology, and recurring capacity pressures.
“Fifty years ago, this community fought to build a hospital close to home. What they created has grown into something much larger and with greater expertise than anyone could have imagined,” said Dr. Andrew Falconer, President and CEO of Queensway Carleton Hospital. “Through every period of growth, every challenge and every change in health care, the constant has been our people and their commitment to the patients and families who depend on us.”
QCH’s history is also a story of community support. Volunteers, donors, community organizations, and local leaders helped establish the hospital and have continued to support new buildings, technology and programs throughout its history. That partnership has allowed care to evolve as the needs of the community have changed.
“When you look back at where QCH started and what it has become, you see generations of people building on the work of those before them. The hospital has changed enormously, but that sense of community has always been part of who we are,” said Dr. Falconer
Today, QCH continues to evolve. The hospital is preparing for another period of significant transformation as Ottawa’s west end grows, patient needs become more complex, and health care becomes increasingly integrated across organizations and communities.
As QCH marks its first 50 years, the milestone is both a celebration of what has been built, and a reminder of why the hospital was created in the first place: to ensure people can receive high-quality care close to home.
For QCH, 50 years is not the end of the story. It is the foundation for what comes next.
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Media contact:
Natasha Curley
Communicaitons Officer
Communications@qch.on.ca