Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement with questions to the Minister of Finance on the Stanton Hospital. We put tens of millions of dollars into a Fort Smith hospital and a Hay River hospital, and now, when we should finally be going after the long overdue Stanton Territorial facility, what are we doing? We’re building new highways on the most costly terrain known, paying off poorly-thought-out bridge infrastructure and pursuing other new and expensive projects.
I’d like a clear commitment from the Minister that this fall’s capital budget will contain a proposal for a full and comprehensive start and an end to nickel and diming this project forever. Will the Minister give us that assurance? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The territorial government and this Assembly have committed to a broad range of infrastructure development, and I agree with the Member that Stanton is our flagship when it comes to acute care. We’ve started the process, it’s been some time in the making, we’ve dealt with a lot of issues on an ongoing fashion, but we are now fully committed to engage in a process that will see an investment of at least $200 million to do a much needed midlife retrofit and the capital plan is coming forward. The Minister of Health and the Minister of Public Works, sitting to my immediate right here, are listening carefully to the discussion here today. As we come forward with the capital plan, it will reflect the importance of this project. Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks to our fiscal procrastination we are now passing the point of completing a half-life retrofit on this asset.
The Minister of Finance commented publicly that we need to spend $200 to avoid replacing the hospital for $500 million, but I’m sure everyone here will agree that’s very much lowballing the estimate of these costs. Many suspect our procrastinated renovation may be pushing toward 300 and 400 million dollars in the billable amount, the longer we wait and current proposals are again nickel and diming. You’re stretching this out over decades, despite the Minister’s commitments.
So does the Minister agree that in the interests of both better patient care and wise fiscal management, we need to accelerate planning and implementation on this project starting in the next capital budget?
Thank you. We agree that this is our flagship, it’s a critical piece of health infrastructure. We’re laying out a plan that’s going to allow us to do much needed renovations and, at the same time, keep the operation in Stanton, for the most part, functioning and providing service, which is another critical piece that will add a time and complexity to the completion of the project. But, yes, we agree with the Member that we’d like to get this thing fully in the pipeline as fast as we can without compromising patient safety, and get this much needed project on the road to completion. Thank you.
Thank you. A strange kind of priority when we’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars on other projects and dragging this out over the decades. Because this is an operating and jam-packed hospital, carrying out the renovation during hospital hours will be difficult.
Does the Minister anticipate any extraordinary costs resulting from having to refer patients to southern institutions when wards, operating theatres, clinics, diagnostic and other facilities are closed for renovation? Mahsi.
Thank you. It clearly makes good management sense as we look at the scope of this project, and trying to maintain services as well as complete a major renovation and upgrade, that we have to look at other places, backups for services on a temporary basis, that we may have additional pressure on our medical travel and such. But that will be part of the planning and one of the reasons it’s taking time to get this project to the state that it is.
Once again, we agree with the Member that once we move down the path past the planning, once we get into this, the intent is to try to get it done as quickly as possible, but as well done as possible. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree with the Minister. We want to do this properly, we want to do it quickly, and we want to do is safely. How can we do that when we’re nickel and diming this project?
As we have been talking about, we’re talking about a fairly substantial number, a number that, at the end of the day, will exceed the cost of the bridge. We’re talking $200 million, possibly greater, to do this. We’ve committed the resources. It’s in the capital plan. The money has started to flow. We’re going to try to make sure the steps proceed in as timely a way as possible without compromising patient safety and efficiency, and making sure we can manage to run the hospital as we renovate around it.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
