A whole range of politicians were in Gatineau on Thursday morning to announce that the 600-bed complex will be erected on federal land where the Asticou Center is located, on Boulevard de la Cité-des-Jeunes, in the Hull sector.
A “service point” is also planned in downtown Gatineau, in the 11-story building at 70, rue Crémazie, “to bring together certain high-volume clinical activities.”
This decision comes almost two years to the day after the government announced that the hospital would be in the Richelieu industrial park.
“What happened? Well, it happened that during the last two years, we unfortunately had several surprises,” mentioned the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé.
The land of the industrial park along Boulevard de la Carrière presented new “challenges”, including the excessive presence of biogas. The scale of the decontamination to be carried out and the dozens of expropriations that would have been necessary pushed back the government, which decided last year to launch into additional analyses.
The provincial minister responsible for Infrastructure, Jonatan Julien, for his part stressed that the cost of the expropriations in this location would have “clearly” exceeded a billion dollars. The massive presence of gas “endangered construction, even a posteriori expropriations,” he added.
The minister responsible for Outaouais, Mathieu Lacombe, argued that it had therefore become “impossible” to build the CHAU in this location. The reservation notices will also be lifted for all land that could have been expropriated in this sector.
In the case of the land on Boulevard de la Technologie, in the Hautes-Plaines, the site was, among other things, ruled out due to problems with soil stability and issues of protection of fauna and flora.
Cité-des-Jeunes will be expanded
The federal Minister of Public Services and Procurement, Jean-Yves Duclos, confirmed that “an agreement in principle has been signed” to transfer part of the Asticou Center land. Everything will be done at fair market value, he said.
The Minister responsible for Infrastructure in Quebec, Jonatan Julien, announces the choice of the site for the future Gatineau hospital.
The government of Quebec will have access to a space of some 173,000 square meters for the CHAU. The National Capital Commission (NCC) will inherit a strip of 92,000 square meters in the southern portion of the land. This portion of the site could thus be “renaturalized and preserved,” said Mr. Duclos.
The current land, including the portion that will go to the NCC, has a land value of $80 million.
The Center The federal government will transfer – at fair market value – part of the Asticou Center land. (Simon Séguin-Bertrand/Archives Le Droit)
Different access points are planned for the CHAU, but they will all lead to Boulevard de la Cité-des-Jeunes. The artery will therefore have to be widened to allow the influx of some 5,000 workers and thousands of patients who will go there on a daily basis. Accessibility is also the biggest issue emerging from analyzes carried out by the Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI).
The vice-president of western projects at the SQI, Dominic Lemarquis, pointed out that there already exist, elsewhere in the province, hospital centers with only one access route. “The idea, for us, will be to optimize the configurations to access [au site]“, he explained.
Other portions of the surrounding road network will therefore have to be developed accordingly. However, the government will have no possibility of touching Gatineau Park.
“A bad choice”
Even before the government press conference began, the Coalition for an Accessible and Sustainable Hospital Center in Outaouais (CCHADO) had serious reservations about the choice of the Asticou site.
“During two meetings held [mercredi] with the government to hear the explanations on the choice of the Asticou site, we come to the conclusion that the whole process led to making a bad choice and finding excuses to go against its own orientations [en matière d’aménagement, de mobilité et de santé]», indicated the CCHADO in a press release.
The minister responsible for Outaouais, Mathieu Lacombe, spoke of “an excellent compromise site”. He made a point of saying that even if the Asticou site is not unanimous within civil society, there is nevertheless a “consensus” around this choice.
The new mayor of Gatineau, Maude Marquis-Bissonnette, does not see things the same way.
“I think that to say that there is a consensus on Asticou is above reality,” she reacted. The reality is that there is much broader consensus for a central site. The municipal council is largely in agreement, there are also plenty of groups in civil society, citizens who want to be able to easily get to this hospital, who wanted it to be consistent with our land use planning. That would have been a win-win.”
Despite the criticism, Minister Jonatan Julien insisted that the Asticou Center land is “the best site, by far.”
“Coming up with a project like this and hoping for unanimity is dreaming in color,” Mr. Lacombe argued.
The provincial minister responsible for Infrastructure, Jonatan Julien (Simon Séguin-Bertrand/Le Droit)
A few minutes before the announcement, the Liberal MP for Pontiac, André Fortin, wanted to see Minister Christian Dubé put in place new measures to support the Outaouais health network in the very short term.
“The main issue is no longer even the site of the hospital, it’s ‘what are we going to do to improve health care in Outaouais between now and the construction of the hospital? ?? There are people this summer who are not having their cancer surgery.”
However, Minister Dubé did not have any new announcements to make to respond to the crisis plaguing the regional network. However, he recalled that a first cohort of flying teams promised for Outaouais, Abitibi-Témiscamingue and the North Shore will be deployed in the last week of June.
Timeline
The SQI’s current game plan foresees that construction of the CHAU will be launched at the end of 2026. While the government previously spoke of an opening between 2030 and 2032, the SQI’s timetable now speaks of 2034.
The government, however, believes that it will be possible to bring the arrival date of the first patients closer. The Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, judges that 2034 is “too far away”. He thus keeps his sights set on 2032 and cites the example of the 404-bed hospital being built in Vaudreuil-Soulanges to say that it is possible.
Undetermined budget
The Quebec government has always limited itself to talking about a budget of $2.5 billion for the CHAU de l’Outaouais. The former interim president and CEO of the CISSSO, Yves St-Onge, however, affirmed last fall that the bill would be closer to “four billion something”.
Minister Lacombe, however, did not want to give an amount on Thursday. “Giving figures always increases the bill,” he said. […] The real figure will be the figure that will be approved by the Council of Ministers when we reach approval of the business file.”
Services in the city center
Even if it will not accommodate the 600-bed hospital complex, downtown Gatineau will still offer certain health services as part of the CHAU project. The government has made a promise to purchase the building at 70, rue Crémazie, which belongs to the Heafey and Multivesco groups.
The promise to purchase targets 70, rue Crémazie, in the Hull sector. (Simon Séguin-Bertrand/Le Droit)
Located near the Rapibus corridor, this building will primarily serve as an “ambulatory center,” said the president and CEO of the Outaouais Integrated Health and Social Services Center (CISSSO), Dr. Marc Bilodeau.
Sampling, vaccination and screening activities should be carried out there, while the new regional laboratory will be installed there. It is also possible that pre-operative examinations can be carried out there.
The CISSSO should take possession of the building – whose property assessment amounts to $67 million – next year, so that the first patients could be welcomed there in 2026.
Dr. Bilodeau clarified that initially, only the first two floors will be available for the CISSSO; the others will be added as current leases expire.
According to the CISSSO clinical plan, the new hospital should include:
- 348 medical beds
- 173 surgical beds
- 32 TARP beds (labor-delivery-recovery-postpartum)
- 25 pediatric beds
- 22 mental health beds
- 16 neonatal bassinets (excluded from the total beds)
- 67 stretchers in the emergency
The opening of CHAU will inevitably have an impact on the role of existing hospitals. The new hospital will have 600 beds, but the net gain will be 240 beds for the region.
