Vaudreuil-Soulanges hospital project almost doubles in size, cost
The project to build a new hospital in Vaudreuil-Dorion has doubled in size and scope after an analysis of regional needs revealed the initial plans would be inadequate to serve the area’s booming population.
At a press conference last Thursday, Quebec Premier Phillippe Couillard said that a recently completed clinical plan concluded that a hospital of the size originally planned for the VaudreuilSoulanges region would quickly become overcrowded. The revised plan will include 404 beds, at a projected cost of $1.5 billion. The cost of the project had originally been estimated at $800-million.
Couillard said that increasing the size of the project has slowed down progress on the hospital, but that it was more important to ensure the facility was the right size to serve the community. “I could have come last year to announce a 200-bed hospital. People would have been very happy. But five years later, we would see that the hospital is already overburdened and we would have to add another hundred beds,” Couillard said.
With a planned 404 beds, the capacity of the new hospital will be almost twice that of the Valleyfield hospital and 1.5 times that of Lakeshore General Hospital in PointeClaire. The Vaudreuil-Soulanges hospital will also have 10 operating rooms and an emergency room with 41 stretchers.
Health Minister Gaétan Barrette said the Vaudreuil- Soulanges hospital will offer a range of services from oncology to palliative care to mental health services and childbirth, welcoming more than 2,000 babies per year.
“It’s a hospital of the future. There’s going to be a lot of day services, outpatient services,” said Barrette. “It’s a different way to configure a hospital.”
Of the 404 beds, 94 are allocated for surgery, 24 for pediatrics, 25 for obstetrics and 44 for psychiatric services. Two surgical rooms will be dedicated to obstetrics, and the operations wing will include 25 stretchers for outpatient procedures.
The Vaudreuil-Soulanges hospital project was first announced in 2010 by a previous Liberal government. In 2016, Barrette announced the selection of a 2.7-million-square-foot property near the junction of Highway 30 and Cité-des-Jeunes Blvd. in Vaudreuil-Dorion as the site of the new hospital. The province has not yet finalized an agreement to expropriate the land.
Although in 2016 Barrette said the hospital would be completed by 2021, construction is now estimated to begin in 2022, with an anticipated completion date of 2026.
Barrette said planning for such a large project takes time, and should not be rushed. “We can dig a hole tomorrow but we are building a hospital, not a quarry,” he said.
According to the Municipalité Régionale de Comté de VaudreuilSoulanges (MRC), the region has grown three times faster than the provincial growth rate, up more than 12 per cent between 2006 and 2011 compared to four per cent in Quebec as a whole.
The approximately 138,000 residents of the 23 municipalities within the Vaudreuil-Soulanges region currently have to cross a bridge or a border to access hospital services. Residents must travel to the Hôpital du Suroît in Valleyfield, Lakeshore General Hospital, Hawkesbury Hospital in Ontario, or even farther afield for emergency care.