Hospitals earning extra revenue as set locations for TV, film shoots

Montreal’s two university-teaching hospital networks earned more than $2.8 million in three years in an unconventional manner: by renting out certain locations as film sets for TV series and movies, including the Quebec hit La Bolduc and the smash American TV series Jack Ryan.

The McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) alone raised $2.6 million from 2016 to 2018. By comparison, the Centre hospitalier de l’université de Montréal (CHUM) generated about $250,000 during the same period, according to figures obtained by Presse Canadienne.

Quebec TV and film lovers will remember some of these scenes. When Mary Rose Anna Travers, known as La Bolduc, has to undergo radiation treatments for cancer, all those scenes were shot in a room that has changed little over the decades: the surgical theatre of the old Royal Victoria Hospital. The surgical theatre was used to teach future doctors. Scenes from the film Bon Cop Bad Cop where also shot in the former Royal Vic building on University St.

In the TV series Les Simone, when Laurence goes alone to an

abortion clinic, she’s actually in one of the rooms of the CHUM.

MUHC sites have been used by actors in the political thriller Jack Ryan as well as in the apocalyptic zombie series The Walking Dead.

As for the CHUM, its corridors have been graced by the CBC-TV series Street Legal, and by those of The Bold Type, a series that follows the lives of three young women working for a women’s magazine.

For film and TV scouts, the CHUM offers ultramodern rooms while the MUHC is sought after for the Scottish baronial architecture of the old Royal Vic, which closed in 2015 after the MUHC superhospital opened.

CHUM officials said the film money is reinvested in the operating budget. At the MUHC, officials said the money is used to cover operating expenses, reduce the deficit and improve services and patient care. Invoices cover space rentals, security, as well as electrician, housekeeping and legal costs.

At the CHUM, no film shootings take place in the hospital itself; they all take place on the weekends at the Learning Centre of the CHUM Academy, spokesperson Joëlle Lachapelle said.

The situation is similar at the MUHC. Movie and TV producers rent the rooms of the old Royal Vic, a spectacular building with the appearance of castle, inaugurated in 1893 on a flank of Mount Royal.

Officials with the Bureau du cinéma et de la télévision du Québec (BCTQ) confirmed that many Hollywood producers are in search of shooting locations reminiscent of hospitals.

When the BCTQ is presented with a scenario that includes scenes that take place in a hospital setting, the team at the BCTQ proposes different locations.

Still, the old Royal Vic remains one of the most frequently filmed locations, according to the BCTQ. Since it’s now closed to the public, it is easy to plan a large shoot there.