Montreal City Weblog

Kate 10:43 on 2024-01-18 Permalink Reply  

• Kevin 17:24 on 2024-01-18 Permalink

  In 2005 there was a $380 million plan to renovate the building and include a helipad. That took six years (!) to get approved, only to be killed in 2014 by Gaetan Barrette and Jean Charest.

  The 2018 plan (announced by Barrette) was killed sometime between then and October 2020 (CAQ government), with the excuse that it couldn’t be done within budget.

  https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/quebec-weighs-whether-to-move-montreal-general-hospital-to-n-d-g

• Nicholas 18:07 on 2024-01-18 Permalink

  I’ve heard from multiple people that medevacs are not great uses of funds except in special cases, such as the north (no roads), islands, combat zones, etc. Even if it was used, the studies that don’t show it’s not worth it show it’s best for acute trauma. Since you need ambulances even in rural areas for less severe things, and you only have the helicopters at one or two airports (and you can’t land anywhere, so the Quebec pilot project was for intra-hoapital transfers), it’s often just faster to drive fast to the big hospital than wait for dispatch of a helicopter and a transfer. But even if, Sacré-Cœur already has a helipad and a level 1 trauma centre, so I’m not sure if having the General have one too would be a good use of limited funds. No opinion on a new wing of the hospital, but we’d want to make sure we have staff for an expansion first, which, well, might be tough.