Quebec Budget: No money yet to rebuild, expand Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital
As staff at the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital dealt with a computer outage Wednesday that forced the hospital turn away ambulances, there were hopes that the province’s 2026 budget would include funding for the long-delayed rebuilding and expansion of the eastern Montreal facility.
While Finance Minister Eric Girard touted his budget as one that would
increase infrastructure spending
, including on hospitals, Maisonneuve-Rosemont wasn’t on the list of hospitals where work will begin.
Dr. François Marquis, the head of intensive care at the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital, said he’d been hopeful the budget would include money to begin work at the aging health-care facility, which had been scheduled to begin in 2024, but instead the project remains where it was a year ago.
“It’s a disappointment on so many levels,” he said in an interview. “The whole population of Quebec knows and recognizes that Maisonneuve-Rosemont is a big problem that needs to be fixed, not only for the people in the eastern part of Montreal, but also for the whole province. It’s a national issue.”
The computer outage shut down all internal networks, meaning doctors couldn’t access lab results, page people, or update patient files at the facility, which serves around 10 per cent of Quebec’s population, Marquis said.
Marquis said the hospital hasn’t received funding for new computer systems because those systems are supposed to be replaced when the facility is rebuilt. The lack of money for emergency repairs has led to windows blowing open during a storm and issues with rodents, as the hospital waits for the rebuilding to start, he said.
And each month that the project doesn’t move forward, it costs around $10 million, Marquis said, adding that by delaying the project again, the government will waste millions more.
“The project is absolutely ready to start,” he said.
While the government has sought optimizations, he said those have just led to further delays that have cost more than any savings that would be achieved. “The project was already optimized at least twice, so there’s nothing to optimize anymore.”
Benoit Charette, the minister responsible for infrastructure, told reporters that the Maisonneuve-Rosemont project is “going well.”
The delay isn’t an issue of money, he said, but that planning isn’t complete and that the land where the expansion will be located has to be prepared.
This article will be updated.