After pressure and protests, upgrades at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital will start this year

Under mounting pressure, the Coalition Avenir Québec government now says the long-awaited major renovation project at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital will be able to begin some this year.

With the CAQ reining in spending in sectors like health and education due to budgetary constraints, the renovations at the eastern Montreal hospital — as well as several other government projects — had been postponed. 

The criticisms over delaying the work at Maisonneuve-Rosemont reached a peak last Wednesday, the day after a violent storm knocked out power at the hospital and left the intensive-care unit and surgery block in the dark for more than an hour due to failing generators. 

The outage also delayed operations and caused some patients who were in intensive care to be transferred to the emergency room. 

The CAQ's plan to begin the renovation work this year was first reported by La Presse before being confirmed by Radio-Canada sources.

According to the province's Health Ministry, which confirmed the details of this plan, the CAQ government has found a way to reallocate the $19 billion it has at its disposal in for major infrastructure projects in order to begin work at the hospital this year. That plan is known in French as the Plan québécois des infrastructures, or PQI. 

The CAQ's budgetary manoeuvres are expected to unlock a sum of $85 million dollars needed to launch the first phase of the renovation work, which would focus on the hospital's parking lot. The government is also expected to have money for about 30 projects that are still in the planning phase.

One of those projects, according to the ministry, is the renovation of the Hôtel-Dieu d'Arthabaska Hospital in Victoriaville in the Centre-du-Québec region. That hospital is located in the Arthabaska riding, where a byelection election will take place at some point in the coming months.

Last week, Health Minister Christian Dubé said his government had devoted so much money to projects that are currently underway — the new hospital in Vaudreuil-Dorion, Que., for example — that they lack the funds for new projects. 

"We're going to find a solution in the coming weeks," he said at the time. "Even with the very tight budgets that we have, we're working on a solution."

Last Wednesday, doctors and nurses at the hospital held a protest as a way to implore the Quebec government to fast-track renovations at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital.

Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital provides treatment to more than 500,000 Montrealers from birth until death. The hospital also provides care to people outside the region, given its expertise in treating blood cancers. 

The CAQ's revised infrastructure plan will be submitted tomorrow morning during a cabinet ministers' meeting.