P.E.I.'s new psychiatric hospital delayed again, as province scales back on plans

The completion date for a new psychiatric hospital on P.E.I. has been pushed back again, and the costs to replace Hillsborough Hospital jumped to the point that the province had to scale back its plans.

That's what MLAs on a legislative health committee heard this week in an update on plans for a new mental health campus in Charlottetown 

The opening date for the 64-bed facility has been further pushed back to late 2027 or early 2028. 

"How we got here through the design process was long," said Wayne Walker, P.E.I.'s executive director for mental health and addictions capital planning.

"They just didn't know what they didn't know." 

During the 2019 election campaign, Dennis King's Progressive Conservatives promised that work on replacing the Hillsborough Hospital, a 69-bed acute care psychiatric hospital, would begin immediately. 

Five and a half years after that promise, shovels are finally supposed to go in the ground this fall. A construction tender has been awarded, and the province says the foundation for the new psychiatric hospital will go in before Christmas.

"Why were they able to build the medical school at UPEI in the timeframe they did, and this [psychiatric hospital] has taken so long? What's the difference?" asked Green MLA Peter Bevan-Baker during the committee meeting.

The construction cost was initially supposed to be capped at $100 million. The province later upped that to $200 million, but all of the bids still came in over that price tag. 

Walker said government negotiated with the lowest bidding contractor to scale back the project due to the higher-than-expected cost. 

"The government was not comfortable with this price … which it came in at," he told the committee. 

"We looked at some materials on the inside that did not — won't — impact patients or their stay in the building. It does not take away the care, welfare, safety and security." 

Hillsborough Hospital still carries a stigma

Ellen Taylor, a mental health advocate, said a new building will help erase some of the stigma associated with mental health treatment that are still attached to the 1950s-built Hillsborough Hospital. 

"Older people that I know that are like, 'Oh, [patients] had shock treatment there' and that kind of stuff that freaks people out. When you think of mental health they think of … that and they think of Hillsborough Hospital," she said. 

"A new spot … they'll have the proper staff and they'll have good programs running, and I think it'll really be accepted just as a physical illness." 

It was the Wade MacLauchlan government that put forward the concept for a mental health campus, parts of which are now operating.

But the centrepiece, the new psychiatric hospital, is still only schematics and concept drawings.

It all means that Hillsborough Hospital will continue to serve as P.E.I.'s main psychiatric facility for at least a few more years.