NORTH BAY - Construction started today at the new 388-bed North Bay Regional Health Centre to provide residents from North Bay and surrounding communities with improved access to quality health care, announced George Smitherman, Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, at a groundbreaking ceremony with Nipissing MPP Monique Smith. 

“The construction of the North Bay Regional Health Centre is important to everyone in the region and I'm so proud to see construction underway,” said MPP Monique Smith. “We are proud that our hospital will be a state-of-the-art facility that will continue to play a vital role in providing health care and treatment to the residents of our region.”

“I'm pleased to join my colleague Monique Smith to put the first shovels in the ground as we launch construction to modernize the North Bay hospital to bring even greater access to health care for local residents,” said Smitherman.

Smitherman joined Smith, North Bay General Hospital and Northeast Mental Health Centre officials and representatives from Plenary Health to officially launch the construction project. Plenary Health was selected as the preferred team to build, finance and maintain the North Bay Regional Health Centre. Construction is expected to be completed in 2010.

As a three-storey general hospital, the new North Bay Regional Health Centre's redevelopment project will be significantly larger and equipped to offer more services than the present two-site operation. It will also include the new Northeast Mental Health Centre, a two-storey facility that will recreate a home-like, village environment.

Services at the new hospital will include: 

  • A larger emergency department with 32 treatment beds 
  • A consolidated ambulatory care centre
  • Capacity for up to 275 acute care, complex continuing care, rehabilitation and acute mental health beds.

The new Northeast Mental Health Centre, which will be linked to the general hospital, will have capacity for up to 113 specialized mental health beds and serve all of northeast Ontario.  

“I would like to thank our hospital staff, volunteers, fundraisers and the community for their generous donations and support for this project,” said Mark Hurst, North Bay General Hospital President and CEO.  “This truly is a celebration for us.  We are looking forward to this project being completed and our one-site hospital being available for all members of our community.” 

Plenary Health will be paid $551 million in today's dollars over 30 years to build, finance and maintain the new 720,000 square foot facility.  Just over half of that represents the pure construction cost.  During the three-year construction period, the project will employ an average of 200 workers on site daily.

Infrastructure Ontario will work with the North Bay General Hospital and the Northeast Mental Health Centre to manage the construction of the North Bay Regional Health Centre, which will remain publicly owned, publicly controlled and publicly accountable. Infrastructure Ontario is a Crown corporation dedicated to managing some of the Province's larger and more complex infrastructure renewal projects - ensuring they are built on time and on budget.

The project is guided by principles outlined in the Province's Building a Better Tomorrow framework, which ensures public ownership of core assets such as hospitals, schools and water and wastewater facilities.  The North Bay Regional Health Centre project is one of many infrastructure projects being constructed, upgraded and modernized under ReNew Ontario, the government's five-year, $30-billion plus public infrastructure investment plan.

Visit www.infrastructureontario.ca for more information. 

Contacts: 

Amy Tang 
Minister's Office
Public Infrastructure Renewal 
416-325-4048

David Spencer
Minister's Office
Health and Long-Term Care
416-327-4320

Pat Stephens
North Bay Regional Health Centre
705-495-8127

Doug DeRabbie
Infrastructure Ontario
416-326-1006