Construction work will begin in spring 2020 to double the capacity of the emergency department at the IWK Health Centre, where patient visits have increased by 14 per cent in the last two years.

Premier Stephen McNeil made the announcement Tuesday at the Halifax children's hospital, making good on an election promise from 2017.

The government will spend $1.4 million on design work, which should be completed next summer. Construction would follow. The premier also announced $6.9 million for a new MRI and associated renovations for the machine.

Hospital staff say the new machine will be bigger, faster, produce better images and imaging sequences, and have diagnostic abilities currently not available with existing equipment.

McNeil told a large crowd of hospital staff and supporters assembled that the renovations would allow for continued and improved care for patients.

"Doubling of this space will allow you to continue to provide that in a more modern, well-invested, well-designed facility," he said.

McNeil called on hospital staff to work with the design team to ensure the new emergency department meets everyone's needs.

Dr. Shannon MacPhee, chief of emergency medicine at the IWK, said the current emergency department is "busting at the seams."

In the last two years the hospital has seen patient volume increase by about 14 per cent, with more than 33,000 patient visits to the emergency department last year.

"It's becoming harder and harder to meet the standards we're striving for while operating out of an emergency department that is far too small," MacPhee told the assembly.

With emergency care now more complex than it was when the emergency department was built in the 1990s, MacPhee said a site properly designed for today's standards would lead to more privacy for patients and be safer for staff.

MacPhee told reporters that at times it's so crowded in the emergency department that the hospital's dental clinic is used on evenings to see patients.

One of the biggest changes will be how mental-health patients are better served by a new emergency department, which will provide them a quieter and more private space, she said.

Often patients are arriving in vulnerable states, she said, and "plopping them right down in the middle of a very noisy and busy emerg is really stressful and it really adds to that situation."

A new site will also help with infectious disease control. While the hospital is currently meeting standards, MacPhee said doing so requires workarounds.

McNeil said the government is fully committed to the project and will "see this thing to the finish line." While Tuesday's announcement was for funding toward design work and a new MRI, the government has also budgeted for all the work related to construction and completion of the project, he said.

As has been the case with other health-care infrastructure, McNeil said costs for the project would only be announced as work is awarded via tender.