First phase of CHUM, MUHC ready by 2014: Bolduc

The first phase of Montreal's two new,long-promised university hospital centres will be completed by 2014, Health Minister Yves Bolduc said on Thursday.

Bolduc joined Premier Jean Charest and Treasury Board President Monique Gagnon-Tremblay in launching the construction of the research centre component of the new University of Montreal Hospital Centre (officially known as the Centre Hospitalier de l'Universit de Montral, or CHUM).

The research centre will be built on the site of the former Vidotron offices on Saint-Denis Street near Viger Street. Itwill house six research units and 110 teams of researchersfrom various domains, including cancer, neuroscience and musculoskeletal diseases.

Construction of the hospitalportion of CHUM, which will be built on the site of the existing Saint-Luc Hospital, will begin once the research centre has been completed and should be ready by 2018, said Bolduc.

Groundbreaking for the CHUM's English-language counterpart, theMcGill University Health Centre (MUHC), is expected to take place this spring on the site of the former Glen rail yards and will be completed by 2014, said Charest.

The MUHC is still waiting for the two consortiums competingto build the hospital complex to resubmit their proposals after their initial bids exceeded the budget the government had laid out, he said.

"We're dealing with very complicated projects, but projects that need to be done," said Charest.

The premier deflected criticism from some groups, including the separatist Socit-Satin-Jean-Baptiste, about the government's decision to build two university hospitals one linked to a French-language institution, the other to an English-language one.

"There is no linguistic issue for us," Charest said. "If you walk into any of those hospitals, you will hear a lot of people speaking English or French, no matter what."

Public-private partnerships controversial

Outside the news conference, union groups also protested the governments decision to build the two hospitals through public-private partnerships, known as PPPs or P3s.

Bolduc defended the governments plan, saying the move is a guarantee there will be no cost overruns on the projects.

The minister acknowledged, however, that there could be modifications made to the contracts between the government and the private developers.

The construction of the CHUM research centre is expected to cost $470 million $150 million more than initial estimates but the government has yet to sign the final contract for that portion of the project.

The total cost of bothhospital complexeswas initially pegged at roughly $2 billion. The price tag is now believed to have more than doubled, to at least $5 billion.