Ottawa Hospital gets $3M boost to plan Civic move

The Ottawa Hospital will spend the next year working with engineers and consultants to determine which of its health services will be housed at a new Civic campus near Dow's Lake, how big the buildings need to be and how those buildings will be connected. 

Ottawa's Liberal MPPs announced a $3-million grant Monday toward this next stage of planning for the hospital.

"This will take us to a point where we'll have a very solid vision in terms of what the functional requirements are and what the initial cost estimates will be," said Cameron Love, the Ottawa Hospital's chief operating officer.

Previous estimates have pegged the cost of a new hospital at $2 billion. Love said hospitals typically spend five years planning and the next five years on construction, so the Ottawa Hospital hopes to open a new Civic campus by 2026.

Trauma unit, heart institute to remain at Civic

The planning grant comes less than two weeks after the same politicians came together to end a tumultuous process for choosing a federal site for the hospital, rejecting the NCC's original recommendation of Tunney's Pasture.

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Love said the hospital will spend the next year updating planning work it did nearly a decade ago, and consulting with teams from its more than 60 clinical departments and support units.

Love said the Civic will continue to house the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, the trauma unit, neurosciences and a unit for newborns.

As for planning what happens with the current, aging Civic hospital site, Love said that process hasn't begun but will involve plenty of consultation with the City of Ottawa, various community associations and the Champlain Local Health Integration Network.