April 10, 2023 at 2:43 pm
Windsor’s new hospital project is due to submit a major document to the Department of Health later this month.
Submissions will include the first set of block diagrams and campus plans as well as updated cost estimates.
Windsor Regional Hospital chief executive David Musyj said they hadn’t firmed up specific figures, but construction costs would be higher than initially expected.
“The ministry and the government have made it clear to us that this is no surprise to them. We just need to fix it and we have to do it step by step,” Musyj said.
In 2015, it was estimated that the entire process would cost about $2 billion and take about 10 years to complete. The process has been delayed due to legal disputes over the chosen location.
Because of these delays, the hospital did not receive funding until 2021 to enter the planning phase of the project. Under the new timetable, contracts are expected to be awarded in 2025 and construction to begin in 2026.
“Now that we’ve invested in it, we have to take it one step at a time. When it was first approved in 2017, I would have liked to have had this progression, but it didn’t,” Musyj said. “That’s the water under the bridge, we can’t recreate the history.”
After hospitals submit their applications this month, the Ministry of Health will review them and provide feedback to help develop the final plan.