Construction moving along at ‘state-of-the art’ King Animal Hospital

Yorkregion.com
Jan. 25, 2022

A state-of-the-art facility is coming to King City.

The King Animal Hospital in King City is expected to open its doors early next year.

The owners of King Animal Hospital, Rob and Danielle Scheinberg, also own Dog Tales Rescue and Sanctuary, a dog rescue and horse sanctuary on 50 acres of land in King City.

The Scheinberg family hired Tracy Jones as CEO of the animal hospital in November. Jones has experience in human health care through working in the long-term-care and hospital sectors over the last 20 years.

“What their hopes are is I can bring to the animal hospital a lot of the regulatory processes and diligence that a human would have in a human hospital,” Jones said. “Not only is this hospital going to set itself apart from other animal hospitals because of all the services, the specialists and diagnostics that we’re going to offer, it’s also going to have a lens from a management perspective of how human hospitals are operated, and how are they being measured for success.”

When completed, the King Animal Hospital will be just under 60,000 square feet and four storeys with an indoor arena.

“We’re focused on companion animals and the equine. Our indoor arena will allow our equine vets to do assessments on the horses indoors in an arena,” Jones said.

The animal hospital will have services and equipment that haven’t been seen in Canada. One example is a standing CT scan machine for horses, Jones said.

“We’ll also have water therapy for both the horses and dogs. We’ll have MRI and X-ray,” Jones said.

The animal hospital will also offer alternative therapies, such as naturopathic, acupuncture and massage.

The Scheinberg family invested in a surgical arm that will take X-rays in real-time, which means the surgeon doesn’t have to stop surgery to get scans done, Jones said.

“We know that will make a big difference in both the cost to the consumer but also the health of the animal,” she added.

Part of the new animal hospital will have a learning and knowledge sharing centre to allow the building of a community of specialist veterinarians that want to learn.

“The goal is to raise the quality and access of services for the community,” Jones said. “We know what we’re going to do is going to be world class, but really, we want all animals to have the access to that sort of expertise.”

Jones said one of the Scheinbergs’ main drivers behind building the hospital was seeing families struggle to provide the expert care their animals need.

“We want to say that we’re accessible to the community. We’re going to be competitive in our prices, but the experience you’re going to have, both you and your animal, will be unlike what they’ll have experienced elsewhere,” Jones said.

John Tait, a veterinarian with the Ontario Veterinary College, said there’s been a surge in demand for veterinary services in Ontario.

“I think (the King Animal Hospital) definitely will meet a societal need to provide an additional source of care, not only companion animals but horses as well. It's a state-of-the-art facility,” he said.

Tait said the animal hospital will meet needs at the primary care level as well as “vertically integrated” care with specialists.

“For Ontario, it will not only bring in another hospital, a vertically integrated hospital with a state-of-the-art facility, but also the level of care will be at the highest standards as defined by our accrediting bodies,” he said.