Replacements, upgrades coming for ailing elevators at Halifax hospital

Officials at Nova Scotia Health have started the multimillion-dollar process to replace outdated and out-of-order elevators at the beleaguered Victoria General Hospital in Halifax.

It's the latest example of efforts to extend the life of a facility that successive provincial governments have attempted to replace.

A spokesperson for the health authority said the elevators in the hospital's Victoria and Bethune buildings have become unreliable and not serviceable.

"The Victoria in particular serves high volumes of patients and two of the four are out of commission, pending replacement," Brendan Elliott said in an email.

Maintenance teams have been able to deal with intermittent outages in the past, Elliott said, but the two elevators have been permanently out of commission since last spring.

Last month, the health authority awarded an untendered contract to Maxim Construction worth $455,000 to do alterations at the Victoria building to accommodate the replacement of two of the elevators and upgrade the other two.

Elliott said a government tender was considered but, given the critical nature of the project, "having all phases in alignment with the elevator equipment schedule was imperative."

Bethune building elevators also down

Nova Scotia Health invited bids from four companies. Maxim was the low bid of the two companies that responded.

The overall project, which also includes electrical work and the fabrication of the elevators themselves, is estimated to cost $2.8 million and take up to 20 months.

One of the elevators at the hospital's Bethune building has also been out of order since last spring and the other stopped working a few weeks ago, according to Elliott.

"Teams are attempting to source replacement parts in the interim, so far without success," he said. "We are working with building occupants to relocate services to ensure continuity of service."

• Victoria General hospital plagued by problems since the 1980s

Elliott said the Bethune building project, estimated to cost $1.3 million, is operating on the same timeline but is "separate and unconnected" to the work on the Victoria building elevators.

Replacement plans keep facing delays

Provincial governments dating back to at least the NDP in 2009 have tried to replace the hospital, which is well beyond its best-before date and plagued with problems, including undrinkable water.

A former Liberal government released a replacement plan in 2016 that would have seen the Victoria and Centennial buildings at the VG demolished in 2022. As delays with the plan persisted, however, the current PC government updated it two years ago to account for population growth.

Closing the Victoria General requires a massive redevelopment of the Halifax Infirmary a few blocks away. While preparatory work for that project is underway, the province has yet to sign a contract for Phase 1 of the redevelopment project and has missed its own timelines to have it in place by now.

In the meantime, project work at the VG continues in order to hold things together.

Work was done two years ago to improve the water quality so hospital patients could shower. The water is not fit for drinking due to long-standing problems with legionnaires' disease.

Employees at the VG have also struggled with spiking temperatures in some areas during summertime because air quality concerns have prevented the expansion of air conditioning on all floors.