The nearly 100-year-old Verdun Hospital is about to get a massive, modern facelift.
Quebec announced that the hospital will be expanded by more than 260,000 square feet, increasing its area by 60 per cent. The aging institution is getting a brand new five-floor pavilion, a new atrium and more.
Health authorities said the new additions will increase the number of private rooms from 24 to 144.
“We’ve seen during the pandemic that having rooms with two or three patients is not a modern solution to provide care. So this new expansion is not extra beds, it’s extra rooms,” said Dr. Jean-François Thibert, medical director at the CIUSSS Centre-Sud, the regional health authority that oversees the Verdun Hospital.
Thibert was joined at the announcement by Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé and Verdun mayor Jean-François Parenteau, among other officials.
Parenteau spoke of the dire need for an upgrade at the deteriorating building.
“Despite the deteriorating container, the quality of care was always excellent,” said Parenteau.
Construction will begin in 2021, and should be completed by 2025. In the meantime, Verdun Hospital will be getting 36 new beds in a new modular building this winter, as was announced in August.
“The old hospital needs a total revamp,” said Dubé. “Basically here what we’re saying is, ‘How can we manage this modernization?’ It takes years even if we start right now, but we cannot wait for years to have improvement. That’s the reason we’re going with the modular system.”
He said similar temporary solutions will soon be popping up at other aging hospitals.
The Verdun Hospital was built in 1932. Its expansion will cost the province $264.9 million.
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