Province plans master capital plan for HSC

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This article was published 23/02/2020 (1523 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After overhauling health care and shaking-up services at Winnipeg hospitals, Manitoba Health will now conduct an inventory at the Health Sciences Centre.

Health Minister Cameron Friesen said coming up with a master capital plan for Manitoba’s largest hospital is long overdue.

“The right time to have taken a master plan is 15 years ago,” Friesen said Monday. “The second-best time is right now.”

A request for proposal will soon be issued to conduct one of the “largest and most significant” initiatives in Manitoba’s health system, he said.

The Winnipeg centre for trauma, transplants, burns, neurosciences, and complex cancer care also delivers the most specialized care for adults and children. The master capital plan for HSC will include an inventory of facilities and clinical services, and consider shifting the location of specific clinical services to meet both current and future population needs, a news release said Monday.

“Our needs for health care are constantly growing,” and the HSC site “isn’t getting any bigger,” said Friesen. (Its campus covers 39 acres of land.) “How are we going to grow that campus?”

The province needs to look at what’s needed in terms of clinical planning and buildings, and what “synergies” can be found, he told reporters. For example, HSC has some patient bed towers that are nearing 60 years old, the minister said, and “really showing their age.”

The plan will also look at the state of Manitoba’s main lab (Cadham Provincial Laboratory) that’s “a going concern,” as well as training for nurses at the University of Manitoba’s Fort Garry campus rather than the Bannatyne campus, he said.

“Clearly, a plan is needed,” Friesen said, chiding the previous NDP government for not doing enough planning. (The Tories were voted into power in 2016, and re-elected last year.)

The HSC master capital plan will be the first of many, the minister said. “Think of it as the need to call before you dig. If we proceed to construction too quickly, then we could be left with huge additional bills that would be unnecessary.”

Friesen didn’t say how much the master plan will cost the province, but promised it would be worth it: “There will be a tremendous return on investment.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca