Government restarting procurement process on ambulatory building at Red Deer hospital

The Alberta government is no longer pursuing a public-private partnership to build an ambulatory building at the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre.

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When asked, an Alberta Infrastructure spokesperson said the decision to use a design-build model was made recently, although it was originally put forward last year as a public-private partnership (P3) project.

“One of the main determining factors when choosing to go down the path for a P3 is value for money. In this case, we went to procurement, received proposals and the value for money was not there. This is all part of the P3 process and is proof that the process works,” press secretary Benji Smith told CTV News Edmonton in a statement last week.

He denied the change in direction means the project is on hold, as former Alberta Medical Association president Dr. Paul Parks worries.

“If there are delays – if they really are going back to the drawing board and have new companies bid and re-look at things and they’re not moving forward – this is a major concern,” he told CTV News Edmonton.

Smith promised, “Work is already underway to begin the new procurement process for this project and we will have more to say as it develops.”

The ambulatory building – to be located south of the surface parkade to provide ambulatory care services and clinical support services when patients don’t need to be hospitalized – is one half of the redevelopment work happening at the hospital.

As for the other half of the redevelopment project, Clark Builders has completed early site work, started construction of a new patient tower that will host 200 additional beds, and will soon be demolishing the annex building.

Friends of Medicare’s executive director Chris Gallaway says the project was long overdue before the government restarted the procurement process for the ambulatory building.

“That’s a delay that didn’t need to happen when you could have just done the design-build process,” he said.

Altogether, the upgrades have been priced at $1.8 billion.

All of the work is scheduled to be finished by 2031.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Marek Tkach