Moving Forward With the Lachine Hospital's Redevelopment

“The different pieces of the puzzle are coming together at Lachine,” says Normand Rinfret, Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). “The Clinical Activities Priority Settings exercise (CAPS Lachine) was completed this spring and the recommendations were recently approved by the MUHC Board of Directors, bariatric surgery is well underway, user groups have begun, and the construction of the extension for the new MRI will begin soon.”

Indeed this fall will be busy at Lachine. The most visible change will be the start of construction of a home for a new special magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, which will provide the best patient care for all, including bariatric and claustrophobic patients. “It will be the first of its kind in Quebec’s public healthcare system and we are honoured to have it at Lachine,” says Administrative Director Jocelyne Faille. “We will not only be servicing our local community, but much of the province as well.”

The hospital will be adding 4,800 ft2 of space divided over three floors (basement through level 2) in addition to a mechanical room on the extension’s third floor. Phase one – the envelope – will be complete next spring. Phase two will include the construction of the interior walls and rooms, as well as renovations to over 3,500 ft2 of the existing hospital surrounding the new MRI area. “These renovations will provide for a new waiting area, preparation rooms and new ultrasound rooms, including one adapted for obese patients,” says Faille.

Another major advancement will be the start of user groups in September whose mandate is to better define space, flow and adjacency requirements going forward. The user groups will be helping to update Lachine’s Functional and Technical Program (FTP), which was done in 2009 and revised in 2010 – a key next step in obtaining a revised cost estimate for the rest of the Redevelopment Project. “This update will be used to make adjustments to the project and determine the phasing of construction. Then we will be able to break ground,” adds Faille.

Meantime, in keeping with its mandate to be a province-wide Centre of Excellence in Bariatric Surgery, the number of these operations performed each week at Lachine will double as of September. Dr. Olivier Court, Interim Director of the MUHC’s Bariatric Surgery Program and his team will operate on four patients a week at Lachine in the new Minimally Invasive Surgery suite. The goal is to perform 100 bariatric surgeries at Lachine this year.

“We are well on our way to ensuring our patients, their families and our employees benefit from modern and up-to-date facilities at Lachine,” concludes Rinfret.