All Posts Tagged With: "MUHC"
Scandal-plagued McGill hospital has huge deficit
Quebec ups oversight
The Quebec government has appointed an overseer to bring the finances of one of Canada’s top teaching hospitals under control in the face of a staggering deficit.
Government experts have tabled a report that says the McGill University Hospital Centre is headed toward a $61 million deficit by next March that could balloon to $115 million by adding non-recurring deficits to the total.
That deficit — larger than that of all other Quebec hospitals, combined — is only the latest bad news to hit the scandal-plagued institution.
The hospital has responded in a statement, saying it agrees with the findings and points out that it is in a period of transformation.
The devastating report cites risky real estate transactions that that were done without approval from the provincial Health Department or Montreal’s health and social services department.
Continue reading Scandal-plagued McGill hospital has huge deficit
Hospital construction delay deja vu
There’s another hospital project in Montreal that’s also behind schedule and over budget
The recent story about construction on a new Montreal hospital being a decade behind schedule and massively over budget, before ground has even been broken, has me feeling some deja vu.
Last spring, construction began on a new McGill “superhospital.” That project was originally proposed in 1992 and at one point was scheduled to open in 2005. Now it’s scheduled to open in 2014. It’s over budget and you know what else is familiar, most of the delays were due to political meddling.
While many of the delays caused by Quebec City have affected both projects, some may have been for different reasons.
While the Université de Montréal project has been plagued by delays from the start and has struggled to find a site, the McGill project has had fewer problems. But that may have been the problem, that it would look bad for an “English” hospital to be built before a “French” one. While Premier Jean Charest has denied this, he’s not exactly the most trusted man in Quebec.
The U de M project on the other hand is somewhat higher profile, in terms of Quebec politics, which has led to the projects’ location being the subject of power struggles both between the government and the university and within the government.
