The hospitals have new names
Grand River Hospital and St. Mary's General Hospital in Kitchener became one organisation, Waterloo Regional Health Network (WRHN, pronounced “wren”), in April 2025. The sites were renamed at the same time, which matters when you are reading signs, appointment letters or a map app that has not caught up.
WRHN @ Midtown is the former Grand River Hospital – KW Campus, at 835 King Street West in Kitchener. WRHN @ Queen's Blvd. is the former St. Mary's General Hospital, at 911 Queen's Boulevard in Kitchener. WRHN @ Chicopee is the former Grand River Hospital – Freeport Campus. Many people, and many search results, still use the old names.
How far the house is
Ebstad Luxe is at 389 Dunvegan Drive in north Waterloo. WRHN @ Midtown is about 6 km away, roughly 12 minutes by car, and WRHN @ Queen's Blvd. is about 10.5 km, roughly 15 minutes. Those are approximate and assume no traffic, so allow more at the start and end of the working day.
Parking at the house is free and on the premises, so a family arriving in two cars, or one person on day shifts and another visiting in the evening, does not need to arrange anything. Without a car, Conestoga station at the north end of the ION light rail is about 5 minutes' drive from the house, and Grand River Transit's trip planner is the reliable way to work out a route to a particular entrance.
Coming for cancer treatment? Check the free lodging first
If you are a patient of the WRHN Cancer Centre, look at the hospital's own lodging programme before booking anything. The Waterloo Regional Health Network Foundation pays for a hotel stay for patients who live 90 km or more from WRHN and are actively having radiation or systemic therapy. Lodging is booked around treatment appointments from Monday to Friday, not including statutory holidays, and one family member or friend can stay in the same room at no cost. The lodging team can tell you whether you qualify.
That is free, and this house is not, so if it covers what you need it is the better answer. A house earns its place in the cases the programme does not reach: a family of four or five rather than a patient and one companion, weekends between treatment weeks, a dog, someone who lives closer than 90 km but still cannot face the daily drive, or a relative staying near a patient admitted for weeks rather than one being treated as an outpatient.
When a house is easier than a hotel room
Long hospital stays wear people out in small ways: eating every meal out, washing clothes in a sink, nowhere to sit except the edge of a bed, nowhere quiet to make a difficult phone call. A house removes most of them. Three bedrooms with a queen bed in each sleep up to 6, with room-darkening shades for anyone sleeping after a night at the bedside, and there are two and a half bathrooms.
The kitchen has a fridge and freezer, stove, oven, dishwasher, microwave, kettle and coffee maker, so meals can be cooked and taken in. There is a washer and a free dryer in the house, Wi-Fi throughout and a dedicated workspace in a room of its own for whoever is still working remotely. The house is detached, on a quiet residential street, with a private fully fenced backyard.
One thing this page cannot tell you is whether the layout suits someone with limited mobility, because it is not described here. If that matters, ask before booking rather than assume.
Healthcare placements and contracts
Hospitals bring in people on fixed terms as well as patients: nurses and physicians on contract, students on clinical placements, staff relocating before a permanent move. For a placement measured in weeks, the useful facts are the long-stay ones. A continuous stay of 30 nights or more is exempt from HST, and a 30-night stay priced against every bookable check-in date on 11 October 2026 came to between CAD 8,176 and CAD 8,909 in total, with cleaning and the service fee included — less per person when colleagues share, since the nightly rate covers all six guests.
Stays of 2 to 90 nights can be booked online, and longer ones are arranged directly. If an agency or employer is paying, choose “Request to book without paying now” at the last step and the stay is invoiced rather than charged to a card. Check-in is self check-in with a lockbox from 4 PM, so a late arrival after a shift needs no one to meet you.
How a stay of a month or more works, and what it includes, is on the monthly furnished rental page.
When plans change
Medical plans move more than most. A discharge comes early, a treatment schedule slips a week, an admission runs on. The cancellation terms are the same at any length: cancelling 30 or more days before check-in is a full refund; between 14 and 29 days, half the accommodation total comes back and the cleaning and service fees are returned in full; inside 14 days the accommodation total is not refunded, though the cleaning fee always is.
Two rules weigh more on a long stay. Leaving early does not refund the unused nights, and a change of dates is handled as a cancellation and a new booking rather than an amendment. So book the length you are reasonably sure of, and if the stay may run into the high twenties, book thirty: 27, 28 and 29 nights all cost more in total than 30, because of the HST exemption.
The figures behind that are in the guide to the 30-night HST rule.