Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital granted university status
Posted July 14, 2026 11:10 am.
Last Updated July 14, 2026 5:47 pm.
The Jewish General Hospital in Montreal has been granted university status, allowing it to access new funding opportunities in research, innovation and education through grant programs it wasn’t previously eligible for.
The new entity will be called the Jewish General Hospital University Health Centre or le Centre hospitalier universitaire (CHU) général juif in French.
At a press conference Tuesday, Quebec Health Minister Sonia Bélanger said the university designation was a recognition of the century-old health-care institution’s excellence.
“Over the decades, the teams at the Jewish General Hospital have built an institution that today brings prestige to Quebec, both here and internationally,” Bélanger said.
“By officially becoming a university hospital, the institution will be able to continue this great legacy by training the next generation of healthcare professionals, advancing knowledge, and developing innovative practices that will benefit our entire health and social services network.”
In Quebec, there are seven other university hospitals and university institutes that provide specialized or subspecialized services to the public beyond their respective health regions. These institutions are not merged with the public health-care network, with the exception of the CHU Sherbrooke.
“This is really the beginning of a process to bring the research and innovation and teaching mission of the institution to a different level,” said Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, president and CEO of the Santé Québec West-Central Montreal Health and Social Services University Network.
There is enthusiasm from both health-care workers and patients for this new designation. They won’t be any new funding with the announcement, but there is hope the new CHU status will benefit patients in the coming years.
“To my thinking, the most important thing is it raises the level of expectation from the institution that everybody working in the institution, everybody involved, government, expect this institution, the hospital, to deliver and continue delivering innovative, creative, helpful solutions for accessible health care,” said Eric Maldoff, the Chair of the Advisory Committee at the Jewish General Hospital University Health Centre.
— With files from La Presse Canadienne
