The Montreal General Hospital might soon be getting a facelift.
On Tuesday Quebec Health Minister Dr. Gaétan Barrette announced plans to build a new emergency room and operating rooms on the existing site.
The expected budget is up to $300 million, including $30 million from the hospital foundation.
As a trauma centre, the hospital says the project is needed in order to upgrade their systems and be more compliant with modern safety protocols. They say they also need more space to meet the growing needs of patients. For example, the current emergency room is too small and crowded with not enough privacy for patients, and the operating rooms need more space to accommodate modern equipment.
The timeline set for the project is four years, and the first phase will be a feasibility study to see whether the planned site on the west courtyard between wings A, C and D is suitable.
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“We might end up concluding that, well, we cannot do it for a number of reasons,” Barrette said during a press conference to announce the project, “because we cannot dig, we cannot build because it’s too close to this, too close to that, but our first estimate is about that area.”
Even if they have to build elsewhere, Barrette said, the project will go ahead because it is included in the Quebec Infrastructure Plan.