New hospital rising west of Montreal

MONTREAL – The long-anticipated Vaudreuil-Soulanges hospital, currently under construction, is just two years away from opening. When it’s ready, it will contain 404 beds, 11 operating rooms and an emergency room. Total cost is expected to be $2.6 billion.

“It’s really advanced at this time,” said Olivier Séguin, the assistant director of planning and monitoring in the major infrastructure projects division at the CISSS de la Montérégie-Ouest, the local health authority, told CBC News.

“It looks more and more like a real hospital. It’s less like a building under construction.”

Around 1,850 workers have been working every day to deliver the state-of-the-art facility to residents, and the project will almost double the number of hospital beds in the Montérégie-Ouest, serving a rapidly growing population.

The new hospital is intended to answer the needs of a rapidly growing population – one that is outpacing the provincial average.

According to the local health authority, the area’s population is projected to increase by 20 percent by 2036.

Without a hospital of their own, Vaudreuil-Soulanges residents currently have to commute to the neighbouring Lakeshore General Hospital in Pointe-Claire, Suroît Regional Hospital in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield or even to Ontario for the Hawkesbury and District General Hospital.

Caroline Bourassa-Fulop, medical and professional services director at the CISSS de la Montérégie-Ouest, says an indicator they use to assess acute care capacity in a region is how many hospital beds there are per 1,000 residents.

“Here in Montérégie-Ouest, we have one of the lowest in Quebec. So we have 0.97 beds per 1,000 residents,” Bourassa-Fulop said.

“This hospital will augment our number to 1.65 beds … and that will give us better access to care for the population.”

In Quebec, the average is closer to 2.3 beds per 1,000 inhabitants.

However, since its inception, concerns have been raised over how the hospital will attract its planned 4,000 employees and roughly 250 doctors.

Officials say the recruitment process will be done in stages.

“Obviously, this will not happen all at once,” said Bourassa-Fulop.

She says they are hoping to recruit about 115 doctors at the end of the first year of the hospital’s opening – reaching about 40 to 50 percent of their recruitment goal. Currently, they are at 12 percent of that target.

“We are really recruiting with residents internationally. We’re going to start a big campaign as well in the fall really to promote this recruiting process,” said Bourassa-Fulop.

The CISSS says it’s also been working with neighbouring regional health authorities as to not disturb the ecosystem of the entire health network.

“We do want experienced doctors to be part of the foundation of this hospital. And a lot of those doctors are working in our actual installations and will be working in more than one space,” she said.

The health authority says it’s been planning for the opening and staffing of the hospital for years.

“We started posting some positions as early as 2024 … to be able to see where staff will move and make sure it won’t drain specifically one area,” she said.

While construction of the hospital is expected to be completed by summer 2027, it will only gradually open to the public in summer 2028.

Staff members will receive technical and clinical training over a nine-month preparation period before beginning to see patients.

The hospital will offer a broad range of general and specialized medical services including neonatology starting at 32 weeks, bariatric surgery, breast reconstruction surgery, pediatrics, and emergency and daily medical care, among other specializations.