More than $30M spent so far on Halifax-area hospital revamp

The province is still two years away from emptying Halifax's Centennial and Victoria hospital buildings, but committees have mapped out in more detail where services now housed in those aging facilities will be relocated.

The provincial government has also released figures that show taxpayers have already spent $33 million on construction or planning work toward that redevelopment.

The relocation plan is the work of 13 committees, teams and working groups set up to ensure a smooth transition of services as the province prepares to demolish and replace the two buildings at the Victoria General site.

Their work was made public as a result of a followup letter sent to the Nova Scotia Legislature's public accounts committee by Nova Scotia Health Authority CEO Janet Knox.

Knox had promised the information when she appeared before the committee a month ago.

The documents show highly specialized surgical procedures such as transplants and thoracic operations will be moved down the street to the Halifax Infirmary, as will critical care, inpatient cancer care, ophthalmologyand hyperbaric medicine.

Other surgeries, such as orthopedics, will be done either at the Halifax Infirmary, the Dartmouth General or Hants Community hospitals, or at a new outpatient facility to be built in the Bayers Lake business park.

The document doesn't specify what types ofsurgeries will be done at each location, except in the case of the Hants hospital in Windsor, which will only do outpatient or day surgeries.

When it comes to the diagnostic imaging currently done at the Victoria General, it will be transferred to the Halifax Infirmaryand Bayers Lake site.

Cancer patients will continue to have access tothose services at the Victoria General's Dickson Building, which is where all cancer care will be consolidated.

Renal dialysis will be shared among three sites, the Infirmary, the Dartmouth General and Bayers Lake.

When it comes to what the document lists as support services such as social work, pharmacies and respiratory therapy, they will be "distributed to the locations of the programs they support."

The Halifax Infirmary site will continue to offer the "highly specialized" services it currently does but some specific clinics may move to the Bayers Lake location. The letter doesn't say which will stay and which the authority plans to move.

The spending estimates were furnished to the legislature committee by deputy minister Paul Laflecheof the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal.

As of March 20, a total of $32,989,000 has been spent on projects to upgrade facilities at the DartmouthGeneral and HantsCommunity hospitals, and on planning and design work at the Halifax Infirmary.

The biggest share of that spending was at the DartmouthGeneral, where renovations completedon the 3rd and 4th floor of the hospitalcost $6.4 million.Work has begun on the 5thfloor and a new tower is being built. Together those construction jobs have cost $21.2 million.

Planning for the redevelopment of the Infirmaryhas cost $3.9 millionto date.

Building two new operating rooms at Hants Community Hospitalhas cost $1.6 million. The final bill is expected to be $3.6 million.

As of March 20, the provincial government hadapproved $181 millionworth of spending for the redevelopment project.