P.E.I.'s new 64-bed mental health hospital won't open before 2027

Prince Edward Island's new mental health and addictions campus in Charlottetown, which includes the replacement for the Hillsborough Hospital, will now not be finished until 2027.

Work on the two largest buildings has not started, although officials from both Health P.E.I. and the Department of Health told a committee of MLAs on Wednesday that progress is still being made.

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Two smaller buildings have already opened, handling transition programs and women's recovery programs.

"Building a hospital is very much more complex than building anything else," said Wayne Walker, the executive director of capital planning with the provincial health department's mental health and addictions operation. "It's different than building a rink."

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. That was four and a half years ago.

After supply chain issues and difficulty securing contractors, Walker said shovels could be in the ground early next year.

"The market is so filled with projects that we need to do things that we haven't done probably three years ago," he told MLAs. "We're having to change the way we do business right now."

Project costs have also increased greatly as work was delayed.

One of the last two buildings to be constructed will be equipped and staffed for 24 beds.

A bigger one, replacing the Hillsborough Hospital, will have 64 beds.

Some opposition members are still skeptical about the new timeline, with Green MLA Peter Bevan-Baker asking the committee meeting: "Why should we have confidence that 2027 is actually going to be the date?"

In an interview after his committee appearance, Walker said "the other pieces of infrastructure" had to be designed and constructed before the hospital could be built.

"Otherwise the beds might have been tripled or even more so in the acute care [facility]," he said. "So these other buildings are coming online."

A Health P.E.I. official told the MLAs that clients are still getting what they need in terms of mental health and addictions care while the campus is under construction.

As well, the province announced late Wednesday that the new Mental Health and Addictions Emergency Room attached to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital will open by February.

In the next five years, Health P.E.I. says it needs to hire for 150 positions on the new mental health campus, which it said will be a world class facility somewhere people will want to work.