Nova Scotia opens key facility in its major health-care overhaul for Halifax area

HALIFAX — Nova Scotia’s massive health-care redevelopment plan will cross a key milestone next week with the opening of an outpatient centre in suburban Halifax that is expected to treat 280,000 patients a year.

Premier Tim Houston said the opening of the Bayers Lake Community Outpatient Centre represents a “big moment” for the region.

“This facility will serve thousands of patients who previously would have had to travel into the downtown core for care,” he said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday.

The clinic, set to welcome its first patients Monday, will offer such services as initial visits with specialists, post-surgery followups, blood collection and X-ray imaging. It is equipped with 100 clinical spaces and 24 dialysis stations.

Houston said the clinic’s location west of downtown was chosen because it’s close to major highways and easier to access for residents of Halifax’s growing suburbs.

Dr. Christy Bussey, medical director of Nova Scotia’s central health zone, said she is thrilled to see the opening of this new clinic.

“It’s been many years since a new facility has been opened and unveiled, and many of us clinicians and staff, and patients for sure, feel it’s long overdue,” she said Wednesday.

In August 2020, EllisDon construction was awarded a nearly $260-million contract to design, build and maintain the new outpatient clinic. It is part of a major health-care infrastructure overhaul across the Halifax Regional Municipality that will include a redevelopment of the QEII Health Centre’s Halifax Infirmary in the city centre.

In May, the province announced that construction was set to start at the infirmary site, but that work has yet to begin. Colton LeBlanc, minister responsible for health-care redevelopment projects, said Wednesday that design work for the project is ongoing.

“We had hoped to start enabling work this summer, that didn’t happen. So in the meantime we’re continuing with the design,” he told reporters Wednesday.

“We recognize that we need to have 100 per cent confidence in the design before we start digging,” he said. LeBlanc said he expects construction on the infirmary to begin next year.

The Halifax hospital redevelopment was first announced in 2016 and was expected to cost $2 billion at the time. In December 2022 Houston announced that the redevelopment of the sprawling hospital complex was being revised to add 423 more beds than originally planned, which he said would cost “billions.”

When asked Wednesday about progress on the infirmary redevelopment, Houston said the “cost pressures are real,” and the government is monitoring costs associated with major construction projects. 

“We have to have good, modern facilities. People want to practise medicine in modern facilities, and Nova Scotians, the patients, deserve it too,” he said.

“So we know those investments will be made and we’re committed to those investments.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 15, 2023.

Lyndsay Armstrong, The Canadian Press