Hospital in Montreal to receive $2.5B upgrade

MONTREAL – Quebec is going to modernize Montreal’s Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital, investing more than $2.5 billion into reconstructing and enlarging several sections of the aged facility in the city’s east end.

The ministry plans to add 176 new hospital beds and expand the intensive care unit, Health Minister Christian Dubé said. That will bring the facility up to a total of 720 beds.

He said investment in hospital infrastructure will attract healthcare workers to the public system and keep them working there. The project will be financed by the Health Ministry.

“The east of the metropolis has experienced tremendous population growth,” said Dubé in a statement. “It is high time to provide the territory with a hospital that meets the needs of local people and to provide physicians, nurses and professionals with an adequate practice environment.”

Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital was born from the merger of Maisonneuve and Saint-Joseph de Rosemont hospitals in 1971. Earlier this summer, health officials asked patients to avoid Maisonneuve-Rosemont and Santa Cabrini hospitals because they were both on the brink of capacity due to staffing shortages.

This was an issue throughout the pandemic. For example, the hospital was at 141 per cent capacity in December 2020.