Children's Hospital Expansion

The Conservatives announced a $1.5 billion expansion to Health Sciences Centre in 2023. The first step of it was buying the Manitoba Clinic to move various operations over the next year so that demolition could begin on some of the oldest parts of the campus of the general hospital. The space occupied in the Manitoba Clinic totals about 70,000 square feet and is long ter. It bails out the Manitoba Clinic but solves a complicate problem of space for the hospital. Long established facilities like HSC need to continue operating even as new facilities are being worked on. 

Hospitals like Women's Hospital took nearly 15 years from concept to completion. Various parts of the hospital that fundraise separately so it is difficult to know what other projects are yet to come. There are various charitable foundations. HSC Foundation is one. CancerCare Manitoba and Children's Hospital are others. So much money pours into these foundations and they all have plans for improvements taking place at Health Sciences Centre.

There are parts of HSC that date back to the 1890s. HSC today encompasses 39 and 4 million square feet of space. This includes all the associated aspects of the campus such as the Cadham Provincial Laboratory, a hotel and research facilities. Canadian Blood Services is across the street as well.

The construction of the new Manitoba Clinic on the old gas station with their parkade beneath it opened a lot of space for hospital expansion. Under Pallister, hospital work ground to a halt unless it was already in progress. Stefanson initiated the $1.5 billion work but it is a 6 year project so some final design work has yet to be produced.

The HSC above is a mix of old and new buildings. The Children's Hospital completed in 1983 is the oldest in Canada now. While modern in appearance, it is not exceptionally street friendly. The windows are too high up on the first floor to look out on the street which would make people who walk on Sherbrook or William feel safer. There is no courtyard for families. Ronald McDonald House has facilities inside as well as their much expanded residence nearby but the hospital.

One of the most tenacious of charitable foundations in Manitoba is Children's Hospital. They have been fundraising for several years and this past month the province added $25 million that over $75 million has been raised for upgrades. This will go to emergency room improvements, operating room modernization and other infrastructure within the hospital. It is unclear whether there is new building or if it takes place inside the same footprint. However, a new hemodialysis section is going up and more space for child mental and physical wellness. 

No pictures have been shown about what it all looks like after Children's Hospital is complete. Only a few draft pictures are available about what work is being done to the Health Sciences as a whole. A 36 bed nursing unit is shown but few details of what it looks like or how it fits along Sherbrook. The above illustration is a first floor elevation. The second floor shows clinic spaces and up to four storey bed towers.

Of interest to note in the above illustration, there is something called Phase Two Mall. Is that a central corridor or will it have restaurants and shops on it? Not entirely clear. The two ten storey hospital towers are seen in the illustration in blue.

It all makes for an enormous project and years and years of construction. And all the while construction goes on the hospital must continue to function as well as upgrade other areas. There seems little doubt that another hotel and some restaurants on the campus could be used on campus. There are only two apartments for students as well.

CBC had a more detailed location of where the new add on was going to go. As mentioned, the goal had been $75 million to raise but $86 million was brought in. In some cases the construction will be invisible from the outside but at some point it will be impossible to miss.

Given the total amount of spending and how many people work, visit and are in the area, you'd think there would associated businesses, housing and the like. And yet the area has very few businesses that thrive nearby and few who work in the massive facility who live in proximity. It is the not the job of HSC to redevelop the neighbourhood it is located in but it certainly makes it more difficult to live in the area where danger has increased in the last years. At the very least, we need to see more personal care homes closer to major hospitals. The one built right be Misericordia was the right move. Concordia as well as a close by personal care home.

Given that HSC is bigger than most cities in Manitoba, it needs a police and security force befitting it's size. The people in place now are doing their best but they need more resources and training. And they especially need people. It just can't end at the entrances.

There is unlikely to be a time when building is not taking place at HSC. The Children's Hospital is getting some much needed upgrades. There should be further announcements soon about the CancerCare and HSC new construction as well as expansion of the University of Manitoba HSC campus.