Construction of the new 400-bed hospital in Vaudreuil-Dorion, Montérégie, will begin next October and should be completed in 2027.
An investment of more than 2.5 billion dollars will be necessary for the construction of the hospital centre. The business case was approved by the Council of Ministers last Wednesday.
Divided into two pavilions, the hospital will have 404 beds, 11 operating rooms and an emergency room with 41 stretchers. The establishment will be located at the junction of Boulevard de la Cité-des-Jeunes and Highway 30, in Vaudreuil-Dorion.
The opening of the Vaudreuil-Soulanges hospital is expected in western Montérégie. Last April, we learned that in Châteauguay, the Anna-Laberge hospital was overflowing to the point where a patient had to be placed on a chair with a small mobile table, rather than on a stretcher in a corridor. Some people have found themselves in wards without access to doorbells to call for help if they feel unwell.
The reception capacity of the future hospital “will make it possible to meet the needs of the population of the local network of services of Vaudreuil-Soulanges”, assures Catherine Brousseau, information officer for media relations at the CISSS de la Montérégie-Ouest.
A clinical plan to assess the needs of the entire territory in terms of care and services is currently underway, adds Ms. Brousseau. “We expect to complete this exercise in the fall,” she says.
Only one bidder
During the call for tenders, only one contractor submitted a bid, according to a person familiar with the matter. The latter explains that the government then had to resort to an exceptional procedure with this same contractor, over the counter, in order to be able to negotiate.
The presence of a single bidder is surprising, according to Marc Boyer, professor emeritus in the department of economics at the University of Montreal. “It’s possibly because the contractors are currently super busy and they don’t have the manpower to embark on very large projects,” he says.
Some entrepreneurs “believe that the government and the cities are slow to pay,” underlines Danielle Pilette, associate professor in the Department of Strategy, Social and Environmental Responsibility at UQAM.
With Marie-Eve Cousineau