MUHC: Canada’s largest health facility construction project

It’s the largest construction project of a health care facility in Canada and it’s happening in Montreal’s backyard.

Work on the new MUHC (McGill University Health Centre) mega-hospital is well under way.

The foundations of the new hospitals and research facilities are now under construction — nine months after the groundbreaking began at the Glen Yards site.

Three-hundred and twenty workers are in a pit that stretches 47 acres – the size of roughly 47 football fields.

MUHC officials expect 1,800 workers to be on site by the end of the year – working to ensure the $1.3 billion-facility opens its doors as scheduled in 2014.

As they hammer and drill away, eight massive cranes tower the Montreal skyline, and two more cranes will be brought in within the next two weeks.

“Nobody has seen as many cranes as this since the Stade Olympique in 1976. So all the workers are very proud,” said Pasquale Biondolillo, MUHC project manager.

It took 18 years of planning, discussion and debate before the ground-breaking took place April 1, 2010.

It’s not just the ground crew that’s excited about it – health care professionals are thrilled to be involved as well.

“We all really look forward to the new environment, and in fact, it becomes a recruiting factor when we try to attract younger physicians,” said transplant surgeon Dr. Jeffrey Barkun.

The facility will include the Montreal Children’s Hospital, the Shriners Hospital for Children, the Royal Victoria Hospital, the Montreal Chest Institute and the McGill Cancer Centre.

There will also be a research institute.