New breast health centre for Moncton

Renovations have begun on a new $4.5-million breast health centre at the Georges L. Dumont Hospital in Moncton.

By next fall, services will be offered in one location within the hospital, said Infrastructure Minister Claude Williams.

"The first floor will provide space for a family waiting room, examination and treatment rooms and two mammography suites," said Williams.

The Katherine Wright Centre at Moncton Hospital offers breast health and screening, but Health Minister Ted Flemming said both centres are needed.

"It is a complicated enough disease. There are enough people that unfortunately have it that there are different areas of expertise in each of the hospitals, which give New Brunswickers access to the kind of health care they need for breast cancer, and yet I don't consider it to be duplicitous," said Flemming.

The Horizon and VitalitHealth networks are working together, he said.

"There has been over the past year a tremendous, almost a renaissance, of cooperation between the two health authorities. We're all New Brunswickers, we're one province, one people and we're all committed to working together."

Meanwhile, there are other plans in the works for the Georges Dumont. The former Vanier school will soon be demolished and a new surgical suite will be built on the north end of the hospital.