Victoria General hospital plans 'had to start at ground zero'

Nova Scotia's Minister of Health, Leo Glavine, says the governing Liberals "went back to the drawing board" about a year ago in planning for the replacement for the aging Victoria General hospital complex in Halifax.

The previous NDP government spent $1 million on preliminary design work, but Glavine said when his government presented those plans to the "clinical community," they were rejected.

"This did not reflect how they see the delivery of health care for the next 40, 50 years," he told reporters on Thursday.

"We basically had to start at ground zero to look at what would be the health delivery requirements for Nova Scotians — and really when we're talking about the VG, for Atlantic Canadians — for the next 40, 50 years."

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Although the minister has been repeatedly asked about the ongoing planning delays, this is the first time he's provided this explanation as the major reason the plan is months behind schedule.

Glavine provided the explanation just minutes after his boss, Premier Stephen McNeil, admitted the province would likely have to foot the full bill for replacing the Centennial Building and the adjacent Victoria General site.

The province had been lobbying Ottawa, and the prime minister specifically, for months for funding under Ottawa's new infrastructure program, Building Canada Fund. The province argued this project should qualify because the QEII Health Sciences Centre serves the entire Atlantic region.

Federal government 'doesn't fund hospitals'

But McNeil seemed resigned to the fact that argument hadn't carried the day.

"I don't believe that we will get a positive response quite frankly," he said. "The federal government doesn't fund hospitals. They haven't been. We asked but we're moving forward on it. And we'll move forward as a province." 

And moving forward included a possible partnership with business, according to Geoff Maclellan, the transportation and infrastructure renewal minister

"There are different mechanisms for [public-private partnerships]," he said.

"When we get to that point where we've identified exactly what we're doing with the VG and other sites in the province, and how it overall relates to our health-care delivery, what are our options going to be for funding that model? That's when we'll look at it and we haven't closed anything off."

Dave Wilson, the health minister for the previous NDP government, doesn't think the province should be pursuing a public-private partnership.

"We know when it comes to public infrastructure, like schools, roads and hospitals, the P3 model ends up costing taxpayers much more in the long run," Wilson said in a statement.

Glavine said his department should be ready to publicly talk about the plan within weeks.