St. Boniface Hospital Emergency Room Expansion

Hospital construction is never cheap. Or easy. Or convenient. St. Boniface Hospital tried to renovate its emergency room over the last few years but with only three emergency rooms in the city, the hospital has really reached beyond capacity for what comes their way. The Conservatives realized that squeezing the heatlhcare system was making their election success more unlikely too late. They authorized St. Boniface work so that it's completion would only be 2025 at the earliest. Perhaps they thought the start of it would inspire confidence but the long waits in ERS only caused the public further hardship.

The cost of $141 million is funded through federal transfer payments and based on patient load at the hospital will be much needed. There is not much room for building at St. B. so they are building out towards Tache. Part of an old low-rise building was removed and a parking lot. This will be the 86,200 square foot new construction. There will also be a renovation of 18,000 of existing space. The 10 ambulance bay is also part of the plan.

In recent days the enormous estate of Miriam Bergen announced a $10 million donation to St. Boniface Hospital in part to the building of the ER. The overall estate is $500 million so we are likely to hear these type of donations for years to come. Her father and mother had also donated through the Martin and Ruth Bergen Cardiac Centre for $3 million. For a time St. Boniface Hospital had a out of town CEO. As being top executive of the hospital depends on meeting donors, living in Montreal seems a long way out of reach. Too may top executives living elsewhere have been phoning it in.

Sometime next the new ER wing will open up and then the focus will be to ensure it is staffed and ready to go. The Urgent Cares all need investment as well. These projects never happen quickly. The cuts can happen quickly but the build up is never quick. And building the ERs usually means, must mean building up investments elsewhere in the hospital but also to personal care homes. 

For St. Boniface the issue now and in the future is likely parking. The parkade is too small both across the street and underground. Cars are parked in private lots all over the neighbourhood. There are a few potential surface lots that could be converted by they aren't cheap. They start at $50 million and need to be maintained and secured. They often make people who have to work or use the hospital parkade bitter. But free parking would likely be filled day and night. Such is the woe if you build it, they will be come...and stay.

I don't know how parkades get paid for. Misericordia added another floor to their parkade recently but never heard how they did it. Even hospitals like Seven Oaks, Concordia, Grace and and Victoria don't have unlimited space. Hospitals are like large businesses. They are constantly fundraising in ways that just weren't seen 50 years ago. Most, like HSC, have built out to the road and upwards. St. Boniface is doing the same but the river and two bridges and parks limit how much they can extend themselves. It seems inevitable the build across Tache.

It seems ironic that there are better bus terminals for malls than there are for hospitals. Bike paths are not going to quite cut for the bulk of traffic going to hospitals. Ambulances need clear paths to get in and out. The city doesn't seem to plan for hospital traffic except to put parking meters up. Where is the bus terminus? As we have more buildings go up including medical school buildings, the bus or public transit question will only increase. Not to mention, where are the multi-unit houses close to hospitals? Not nearly enough. This means far too many staff and those who need medical treatment so far away.

In 2025 we'll have the new emergency room but will we planning nearly what we need to do have our hospitals and the locations they are serve the community better. Will HSC and St. B be like fortresses, inconvenient to get to, scary to stay at and awful places to work or will we be making them better for staff, patients and people who live next to them?