Preparatory work begins for expansion, modernization of Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital

A groundbreaking ceremony took place to mark the beginning of the preparatory work for the expansion and modernization of the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital in Montreal’s East End on Thursday afternoon.

The project, with a reported budget of $5 billion, is expected to take a decade to complete.

“You know, this is the first step and I think we have to be really, really happy about this launch,” said Geneviève Biron, the head of Santé Québec. “And then every step of the way, we’re going to be following budgets and the scope of the projects. So I think this is the way that we want to be doing things and being very thorough and rigorous in following our projects.”

“We serve about 25 per cent of the population when we look at East Montreal and we have about 17 per cent of the facility,” added Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé. “So we’re in lack of eight per cent, the difference between facilities and the demand from population. And there will be more population, we’ve seen that in the last few years. So this project is major, major in health network.”

It all comes after the hospital has been plagued with problems like power outages and water leaks.

The first stage of the project is building a multi-level parking garage to relocate the employee parking. That parking is currently where the future main building, which will house 720 beds, will be constructed. The work to build the parking garage is expected to take about 18 months.

That phase of the project was initially projected to cost around $90 million. Dubé said Thursday it would cost substantially less.

“Because the market has changed, there is a lot more competition for work right now,” the health minister explained. “We’re not in the pandemic anymore. So in this project, nine suppliers came for this project. And instead of having 89 million, I think we’re at 65.

“Twenty million over 65, that’s a lot of money.”

The second phase is the construction of temporary structures to allow certain hospital operations to continue.

The main construction then begins with relocating underground plumbing, electrical and communications infrastructure.

Once these preparatory steps are completed, the new main building construction will begin.

Area residents told CityNews they were happy to see the project underway.

“It is for good for us, good for the people living here,” said Rosemont’s Yaoyuan Tan. :We got a new building, a new place for everyone.”

“I think that’s something is needed for me because it’s a hospital and it serves all the East Montreal area,” added Amina Bouakiz, who lives in nearby Anjou. “So this is something very important.”

“I think it’s great news, and they should have done it sooner,” said Nadia Debellis of Saint-Leonard.