MONTREAL – In 1925 the Shriner’s built their current hospital for children on Cedar Ave. right beside the Children’s Memorial Hospital.
In 1956 the Children’s moved down to Atwater Ave. and became the Montreal Children’s Hospital.
In 2015 when the new Shriner’s Hospital for Children opens at the Glen campus of the McGill University Hospital Centre, once again, both hospitals catering to the needs of sick children will be side-by-side.
“We can’t effectively exist without the Children’s, so now there will be no more traumatic ambulance rides (down to the Atwater location) when kids from the Shriner’s need the ICU at the Children’s,” said Robert Drummond, former chairman of the board of governor’s at the Shriners.
The building planning process is complete and the Shriners Hospital for Children will go to open tenders in the next few days for the new hospital.
The $127-million hospital will be 207,000 square feet and eight storeys high – two below ground and six above. Original plans called for a 100,000 square foot structure.
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It is expected to open in 2015 with double the operating rooms of the current structure on Cedar Ave. It will be at the westermost tip of the Glen campus off Decarie Blvd. and adjacent to the Children’s.
“The hospital will be bigger than we originally intended because with the growth of the population the former plans would have put us at the end of capacity,” said Douglas Maxwell, president, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Shriner’s Hospital for Children.
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“It’s an overworked term, but this really will be state-of-the-art with every latest piece of technology, things the Shriner’s have never put in hospitals before.”
Like a motion laboratory, to study walking (gait) and ascertain where corrections should be made surgically on a child, and a surgical skills lab where physicians can be taught proper procedures in a sterile environment, Maxwell explained.
The layout of the hospital will put technical services and an indoor pool underground, with operating rooms, administrative offices, 22 single patient rooms, a cafeteria and outdoor terrace for clement weather on the above-ground floors.
Natural light from the many large windows is a feature of the new design.
Each floor will have a different colour scheme on the theme ‘Canada from Sea to Sea’ to reflect the fact that this is the only Shriner’s Hospital in Canada.
The main floor will reflect the Saint Lawrence Valley, with autumn leaf coloured walls and accents; dinosaurs rule the second floor where physiotherapy and labs are located; operation rooms on the third floor will be in blues and greys with snowflake accents representing the north; the fourth floor with patient rooms will have waves, sand and boat murals playing on the Atlantic theme and so on.
Once a builder has been chosen in Jan. 2013, construction will begin in April 2013 and is expected to finish in Jan. 2015 with finishing work done in the spring and summer of that year for opening in Sept. 2015.
“We broke ground in 2011 but we didn’t start building then, we wanted to wait so that we finish the same time as the MUHC,” Maxwell said.
“It’s critical to have the Children’s Hospital on site when we open,” said Jerry Gantt, the Montreal construction project liaison with the Shriner’s Board of Directors.
“Sitting next to the beautiful hospital for children is the idea spot to be,” chimed in Maxwell.
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