The future of health care is changing in Nova Scotia.
The provincial government will decommission and demolish the Victoria and Centennial buildings of the QEII Health Sciences Centre, starting in 2020.
It means services are moving from the buildings as early as this year to other centres including the Dartmouth General, Hants Community Hospital and Halifax Infirmary.
Dr. David Kirkpatrick says both buildings are unreliable.
“Health-care delivery has changed dramatically in the decade since those buildings were conceived and constructed, rendering them obsolete in design.”
Some of the changes include:
- transferring the most complex and specialized services (e.g., organ transplant) from the VG site to the Halifax Infirmary site of the QEII
- construction of a new space for a specialized outpatient centre that must remain close, or even connected, to the existing Halifax Infirmary building
- development of a community outpatient centre for services that do not need to be delivered in a hospital setting
- moving five palliative care beds from the VG site to a planned 10-bed residential hospice in Halifax
- expanding the Dartmouth General Hospital inpatient and surgical capacity to include four additional operating rooms and 48 beds. This project is now in the detailed design phase.
- enhancing and expanding the Nova Scotia Cancer Centre
- performing more surgeries by re-opening a second operating room at Hants Community Hospital in Windsor and explore using Scotia Surgery services more
Premier Stephen McNeil says it will change the way health care is delivered.
“This is not about the last 50 years, it’s about the next 50 and beyond. This is a real opportunity for us as a province to shape the health care delivery model in our province.”
Costs for additions and an expansion to the Dartmouth General is estimated up to $138-million.
Other costs will be determined once planning stages are complete.
People can look at the full plan here.
