[Halifax] QE II Health Sciences Centre | ? | 14 fl | U/C

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Dartguard

I watched the announcement this morning and the point that really jumped out at me is the first question Karen Oldfield asked when she took over her position. She asked where the ten year Capital plan was. There NEVER WAS ONE. She then asked the staff what THEIR priorities were. The reply apparently was to increase Emergency services then the post acute patient care ( there is very little now). Not moving post acute care patients out of Emerg centers and to home, long term care or rehab is the main reason Paramedics are waiting with patients for hours in Emerg departments.

It is remarkable if true, but I must wonder if the rot goes well beyond the now dearly-departed Health Authority execs. Presumably they put all their capital project eggs in the mega-Infirmary basket. But where was DTPW in all of this? They would have been deeply involved. What about Finance & Treasury Board? All those high-priced bureaucrats never asked the question or pushed back at NSHA for answers? The entire bureaucracy is dysfunctional when it comes to this.

I also liked the Premiers pushback when reporters demanded a costed solution. N.S. is in this crunch because of sticker shock every time someone comes up with a solution. In these inflationary times no one can nail these costs down. Another interesting point made about this pivot is the Contractors were very concerned that they could not cost the Labour needed to build the previous plan as 1000 of the 1500 expected workforce were to come from outside N.S.

Back when I had to deal with the media, this was one of the things that would drive me crazy. Imagine a scenario where *something* unexpected happens. Doesn't matter what. A building burns down, a truck full of valuables is stolen, a crisis that requires a response occurs. It is serious enough that you have to deal with media questions. They all would inevitably ask "What will this cost?" I always wanted to answer, "How the f*** would I know? It just happened and we're trying our best to deal with it! Let us figure it out first!" The media morons are obsessed with having a figure they can publish. That is a mistake if you provide that, because from that moment forward, they will always use that seat-of-the-pants number that has a snowball's chance of being right as the benchmark for all future reporting and skewer you every chance they get.

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

I'm actually surprised that given our increasing population, aging populaiton and covid not going anywhere in the near future that it was determined that we need just 72 more beds at the new infirmary. And just four additional operating roooms than originally planned for. This would seem like a relatively minor tweak to the existing Infirmary plan so I wouldn't expect any holdup for a building redesign.

[LikeCranes]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

When are they going to tear down the VG? I did the majority of my internship and residency in that hospital, but it seemed ancient even then (and I'm 65 now).

At least it isn't the Civic.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by LikeCranes

At least it isn't the Civic.

I spent some time in the old Civic too, as well as the old Camp Hill. The Civic was a relic of the First World War. The old Camp Hill, although very old, actually had a kind of comfortable warmth to it. Some of my favourite internship rotations were at the Camp Hill.

[JET]

The NDP had a plan to replace the VG, the Liberals came up with a new plan, Houston now has a new plan. Things are bad when the water at the VG is now being ’fixed’

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Back when I had to deal with the media, this was one of the things that would drive me crazy. Imagine a scenario where *something* unexpected happens. Doesn't matter what. A building burns down, a truck full of valuables is stolen, a crisis that requires a response occurs. It is serious enough that you have to deal with media questions. They all would inevitably ask "What will this cost?" I always wanted to answer, "How the f*** would I know? It just happened and we're trying our best to deal with it! Let us figure it out first!" The media morons are obsessed with having a figure they can publish. That is a mistake if you provide that, because from that moment forward, they will always use that seat-of-the-pants number that has a snowball's chance of being right as the benchmark for all future reporting and skewer you every chance they get.

The numbers remind me of the concepts of "scientism" and "truthiness". The media would like to be able to write a story about how the estimate was $X and then the final cost was $(X + Y). Those stories attract eyeballs but by themselves are uninteresting. There is the nature of the negotiations between buyer and seller, unknown future inflation, unknown future evolution of needs, there is error in the estimate (often very large, whether you are told or not), and there are a lot of important values and factors that cannot easily be studied and are harder to assign dollar values to.

I think better questions are if the value is good (e.g. is the #1 provincial government priority project the most important one for the province), the estimates and studies incorporate all available information, and waste/corruption is minimized. If the province is building a hospital and steel goes up by 40% so the bill goes up that is not a scandal.

[someone123]

Don't recall seeing this rendering previously:



Related article: https://qe2foundation.ca/our-impact/impact-update/inside-look-new-qeii-qa-dr-christine-short

It looks like site has been fenced off.

[q12]

One year after its announcement, a design plan for the QEII is still MIA

Last December, the Nova Scotia government announced it was embarking on an ambitious health-care infrastructure plan. This December, not much has materialized.

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2292258371811

[Dartguard]

Originally Posted by q12

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2292258371811

Interesting interpretation of the delays on the hospital but missing from the CBC comments was the fact that PCL asked the Government where the 500 tradespeople from Ontario would live while building the Hospital. The bites of the Elephant had to be made smaller after that.

[q12]

Originally Posted by Dartguard

Interesting interpretation of the delays on the hospital but missing from the CBC comments was the fact that PCL asked the Government where the 500 tradespeople from Ontario would live while building the Hospital. The bites of the Elephant had to be made smaller after that.

Maybe if the government(s) had started this project long before we had a housing crisis, this wouldn't have been a problem. It's not like they found out yesterday the VG needed to be replaced. This thread is now over 5 years old...

Posted Oct 4, 2018:

Originally Posted by q12

This is a $2-billion redevelopment that is long overdue. Construction should start in 2020.



https://novascotia.ca/news/release/?id=20181004001

[Dartguard]

Originally Posted by q12

Maybe if the government(s) had started this project long before we had a housing crisis, this wouldn't have been a problem. It's not like they found out yesterday the VG needed to be replaced. This thread is now over 5 years old...

Posted Oct 4, 2018:

Fair points but the VG replacement has been known about from a crumbling Engineering perspective since the 1980's. The Three Nova Scotia's in one however always stumps Metro investments. Darrel Dexter was the last Metro Premier except he grew up on the South Shore. I give credit to Houston for at least trying to plan this as a 50 year solution. What is telling about NS Health investments is there only two Construction Cranes in Cape Breton right now. Both above the Regional Hospital grounds in Sydney.

The C.B and Mainland N.S. voices have always had a disproportionate influence in N.S. Not any more. Metro is just growing too fast and is literally leaving Rural N.S. to follow or get out of the way.Long overdue.

[Keith P.]

I would rather those responsible take the time to get a design close to correct instead of caving to opposition party shouting amplified by the CBC to rush building something that ends up a design disaster like the QEII was. It's not like any new facility is going to appear in finished form overnight.

[MonctonRad]

The VG was ancient even when I was in medical school in the early 1980s (40+ years ago). On some services when I was on call, I would stay overnight in the old nurses residence, and I used to joke that the décor was "early 1940s bomb shelter." I doubt that things have changed.

This issue has been around forever. The fact that there is still no definite plan is appalling.

[Empire]

One of the lessons learned from the modest QEII building must certainly be that capacity should have been built in to be able to expand up.

No doubt certain interest groups were appalled at the time of the height of the structure which may have influenced the design. Had the capability been built in to expand, another 10+ floors could have been added to the existing footprint. Maritime Centre added 8 floors a few years after the original building was constructed and were able to do so because they designed the building for that capacity.

[alps]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

I would rather those responsible take the time to get a design close to correct instead of caving to opposition party shouting amplified by the CBC to rush building something that ends up a design disaster like the QEII was. It's not like any new facility is going to appear in finished form overnight.

Do you mean the "new" Infirmary is poorly designed? Or the QEII complex of buildings as a whole?

I have spent some time in the Infirmary recently and found myself wishing I could get my hands on a floorplan of the place. Access from Robie Street seems awkward but maybe there is a functional reason for that.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by alps

Do you mean the "new" Infirmary is poorly designed? Or the QEII complex of buildings as a whole?

I have spent some time in the Infirmary recently and found myself wishing I could get my hands on a floorplan of the place. Access from Robie Street seems awkward but maybe there is a functional reason for that.

Yes, I am talking about the "new Infirmary" although I don't know anyone who actually calls it that. We had an Infirmary that was demolished shortly before the new place was built but I never understood why they decided to recycle the name. Just to confuse folks I suppose.

I have a story about it. The year it opened (1997?) I had knee surgery at the VG in January or February. That was a story in itself but I'll spare the details. At some point afterwards I had a follow-up in the ortho clinic. I got a letter in the mail saying my appointment had been moved to the new ortho clinic in the new Robie St facility. If memory serves there was no parking garage off of Robie then and just a surface lot. I limped in and was directed down a long corridor to the clinic at the far end, quite the hike for people with ortho issues. Guess nobody thought of that. I don't quite get there before running into a huge number of people blocking the corridor. They were all ortho patients either trying to check in or having already checked in, looking for a waiting area.

It was essentially bedlam as people were totally unsure what to do or where to go. After some time I sift through the mob and get to a check-in desk where I am told it will be a while and that the waiting area off to one side and pitifully small was full, as I could see. So I retreat to the corridors along with all of these other people on crutches , in casts, etc. Those who could chose to sit on the floor but many elderly folks had to stand as best they could. It was just awful.

The noise was such that you couldn't hear your name when they were finally ready for you as nobody had thought to install any kind of intercom or other system to let patients know. By dumb luck I managed to finally get a seat in the little waiting area after a couple of hours and discovered that even it was actually 2 rooms divided by a wall with an open doorway, so if you were in the far one of the pair you still couldn't hear your name called. Good planning!

Eventually I got to see the ortho who worked on me. He was one of the better-known ones in town then, now deceased, and notable for being outspoken. We had always gotten along well and when he saw me and I commented on the mess outside he did a 15-minute monologue about how he and his colleagues had spent all sorts of time thinking about and helping design the kind of space they needed, only to have it all tossed aside. They were left with a badly undersized space in the most remote part of the facility with virtually nothing built as requested. His rant was epic.

[MonctonRad]

I don't know who they get to design hospitals, but, in general, they are absolute morons who have no clue about what they are doing. Patient convenience should be rule #1

At the Moncton Hospital, when they built the new Ambulatory Care Clinic, it included a new enlarged emergency room. The ER is right next to Radiology, but, instead of having direct access between the two departments, instead, they have the walking wounded take a long and circuitous route from the ER to the main hospital lobby to access the Radiology Department. It literally means walking about 200 metres to get to a department literally 15 metres away. It's insane, and people frequently get lost along the way. They also have to get buzzed in to both the ER and Radiology while transiting the route.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Empire

No doubt certain interest groups were appalled at the time of the height of the structure which may have influenced the design. Had the capability been built in to expand, another 10+ floors could have been added to the existing footprint. Maritime Centre added 8 floors a few years after the original building was constructed and were able to do so because they designed the building for that capacity.

I don't really know who's responsible for what but so many of these buildings are small and have strange setbacks. I wonder if the Friends and others paradoxically contributed to a situation where more of the common land is gobbled up for these new buildings due to height phobia and spacing between buildings that's useless as it serves no public space purpose. Citadel High was inappropriately designed too.

I think they are demolishing that little parking garage on Robie. It's about 20 years old.

You also see the weird setbacks around Dalhousie. I believe these were NIMBY innovations demanded by people who said (1) every building must be 6 storeys or less, and (2) these stubby buildings are too tall to be built up to the street.

[Antigonish]

What I've always found odd is why do they keep pouring money into capacity expansion on the Peninsula? I understand upgrading the QE2/IWK but the fact that HRM only really has about 2.5 hospitals all centrally located makes little sense to me.

Why not push capital funds into constructing 2 smaller hospital facilities in the suburbs for mainly general hospital care, and upgrade more specialist related stuff towards the QE2? Why not build a hospital in the Sackville/Fall River/Waverly area and another in Hammonds Plains/Hubley/Timberlea area just off the 103?

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Antigonish

What I've always found odd is why do they keep pouring money into capacity expansion on the Peninsula? I understand upgrading the QE2/IWK but the fact that HRM only really has about 2.5 hospitals all centrally located makes little sense to me.

Why not push capital funds into constructing 2 smaller hospital facilities in the suburbs for mainly general hospital care, and upgrade more specialist related stuff towards the QE2? Why not build a hospital in the Sackville/Fall River/Waverly area and another in Hammonds Plains/Hubley/Timberlea area just off the 103?

The argument has historically been that the facilities need to be close to Dal medical school. I don’t know how places without a medical school manage.