$1.5-B revamp set for Health Sciences Centre Purchase of Manitoba Clinic key to deal By: Carol Sanders Posted: 11:09 AM CDT Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023 Last Modified: 2:23 PM CDT Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023 Updates

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A $1.5-billion, six-year redevelopment of Manitoba’s largest hospital includes the purchase of the insolvent and half-empty Manitoba Clinic, which was deemed critical to getting the massive project kick-started.

The Progressive Conservative government and the Health Sciences Centre Foundation announced the mammoth undertaking Wednesday.

The project, billed as the largest health capital investment in Manitoba’s history, involves replacing old, obsolete buildings with state-of-the-art private patient rooms and space for complex, procedural and diagnostic services, Premier Heather Stefanson said.

“‘It will replace this nearly 70-year-old building that we’re in today that, as you can see, has reached near the end of its life span,” the premier said on the fourth floor of the HSC building that has general medicine beds.

HSC chief operating officer Dr. Shawn Young said the redevelopment would “touch every corner of the hospital and will impact almost every family in Manitoba.”

The foundation is jump-starting the project by buying the insolvent Manitoba Clinic next door.

The hospital will use the half-empty 10-storey privately owned clinic at 790 Sherbrook St. as temporary quarters for outpatient services.

“‘It will replace this nearly 70-year-old building that we’re in today that, as you can see, has reached near the end of its life span.”–Premier Heather Stefanson

The foundation has signed a deal to acquire the five-year-old building that was put under creditor protection last year. It will pay a “fair” price and will close the deal using credit rather than foundation donor dollars, president and CEO Jonathan Lyon said.

The price wasn’t disclosed.

Lyon said the remaining tenants of the clinic support the deal, which requires final approval by the Court of King’s Bench.

HSC would have to construct new facilities to serve as temporary homes for various patient programs – a process that would have taken roughly five years — without the acquisition of the Manitoba Clinic.

Now the rebuild — that will touch the entire Bannatyne campus — can get underway over the next year, as the HSC transitions outpatient services to the Manitoba Clinic, Stefanson said.

It involves the reconstruction of patient rooms and facilities, parts of which are more than a century old. The new adult medicine bed tower will be a minimum 10 storeys and have 240 private patient rooms built to meet current infection prevention and control guidelines. The rebuild located along Sherbrook Street, between the HSC Children’s Hospital and the centre’s rehabilitation and respiratory facility, will expand the adult emergency department and clinic spaces.

“A stronger HSC will create a stronger health care system for all Manitobans, and this project is the first step in our commitment to improving this very important hospital,” Stefanson said.

Doctors Manitoba said the renovation and expansion of HSC is overdue and is pleased to see it move forward.

“Ensuring we have modern facilities helps to recruit and retain physicians in Manitoba, and the age of some HSC facilities has been a barrier in recent years for some specialists,” Doctors Manitoba president Dr. Michael Boroditsky said in an email.

When asked how the province plans to pay for the massive project, the premier said there is capital funding for health in the budget every year.

When asked why her government waited to announce Manitoba’s largest health capital investment until two months ahead of the Oct. 3 election, Stefanson noted that major investments in capital health spending were cited in the throne speech.

Critics questioned the timing of the announcement so late into the PCs’ mandate and well into a health system crisis — and two days before an Election Financing Act deadline that prohibits the government from advertising or publishing “any information about its programs or activities” in the 60 days before election day.

“The PCs today, like the past many days, are making announcements in the hopes that Manitobans will forget their terrible record on health care,” NDP health critic Uzoma Asagwara said.

“Manitobans know that these are just more empty promises by the PCs.”

“Manitobans know that these are just more empty promises by the PCs.”–NDP health critic Uzoma Asagwara

Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont said Stefanson’s announcement of massive funding for health is reminiscent of a previous Tory government trying to hold onto power.

“This is the modern equivalent of what Gary Filmon did in 1999 when he said that he would spend a billion dollars after absolutely decimating the health care system for a decade,” Lamont said.

“This is a government that absolutely ravaged health care, and now they’re trying to make up for it with ribbon cuttings.”

Also Wednesday, the University of Manitoba announced a $65-million multipurpose building will be built on its Bannatyne campus to accommodate 30 additional medical school seats. The annual intake of medical school students increased by 15 to 125 this year and will increase to 140 medical students in 2024.

“A new state-of-the-art facility is good news for HSC and for the medical school expansion, and physicians look forward to being consulted in its design and development to ensure it meets modern medical standards and expectations,” the Doctors Manitoba president said.

The advocacy group last year called for a significant expansion of the medical school to train more doctors.

“We’re happy to see more space for the larger class size is part of the plan,” Boroditsky said.

The multi-storey building at McDermot Avenue and Tecumseh Street will house classrooms, simulation labs and a theatre for the increased number of medical students, a 26,000-sq.-ft. dental clinic, Ongomiizwin-Indigenous Institute of Health and Healing, and a 90-space child-care centre. Construction is expected to begin later this year and be completed in 2025.

The province will contribute $40 million, the U of M said.

— with file from Katie May

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca