Health Minister Gaetan Barrette announced a $65-million plan Friday to improve Saint-Mary's Hospital.
The renovation will add two new storeys and increase the number of private rooms.
The hospital in Cote des Neiges was opened in the 1930s and is a landmark for the anglophone community. When it was opened, it was declared a monument to English Catholicism in Montreal
Times have changed, though and Barrette said the hospital needs a facelift.
While the number of beds will stay the same at 271, there will be 60 new individual rooms and 20 others will be refurbished from existing rooms.
Some of those hospital rooms are now shared by three and sometimes four patients, so the makeover will create more privacy.
There will be more bathrooms and new specialized treatment rooms.
“There's going to be two additional floors. There will be floors seven and eight, so those will be new storeys on which there will be 60 new rooms and 20 of the (current) multi-bed rooms will be renovated to become single bed rooms,” said Barrette.
The health ministry has already earmarked $1.5 million to start the required studies and plans for the project to get underway in 2019.
