QEII acute care tower to be built with future growth in mind

Nova Scotia·NewThe province’s master plan for the QEII Health Sciences Centre will examine future needs that aren’t addressed by the new acute care tower now taking shape in Halifax, says a Nova Scotia Health official.Tower will include new emergency department almost twice the size of the current oneAnjuli Patil · CBC News · Posted: Oct 15, 2025 5:08 PM EDT | Last Updated: 1 hour agoExcavation work for the acute care tower at the Halifax Infirmary was completed Sept. 3, 2025. (Build Nova Scotia)The province’s master plan for the QEII Health Sciences Centre will examine future needs that aren’t addressed by the new acute care tower now taking shape in Halifax, says a Nova Scotia Health official.Excavation work for the 14-storey tower at the Halifax Infirmary site was completed Sept. 3 and construction of the foundation and building is underway, along with mechanical and electrical work.”So really [we’re] looking at addressing the current pressures on the emergency department as well as future planning for increased needs as the population grows and ages,” Dr. Christine Short, the senior medical director of the QEII health-care redevelopment for the central zone, told CBC’s Information Morning on Wednesday.The tower, which will be located where a parkade once stood, is expected to be ready for patients by the fall of 2031 and will include an emergency department that is almost twice the size of the current one.The tower will have 216 beds, 16 operating rooms, a 48-bed intensive care unit and a brand new lab space. Short said the 216 new inpatient rooms will be spread across seven floors, which will allow inpatient services to eventually be moved out of the aging Victoria General site.Master planEarlier this month, the Nova Scotia government awarded a tender to BDP Quadrangle and FBM Architecture Ltd. to develop a master plan for the QEII Health Sciences Centre.The QEII complex includes 10 buildings at two sites — the Halifax Infirmary, Camp Hill Veterans Memorial and Abbie J. Lane Memorial at the Halifax Infirmary site, and the Nova Scotia Rehabilitation Centre, the Centre for Clinical Research, and the Bethune, Mackenzie, Dickson, Victoria and Centennial buildings at the Victoria General site.The two firms, Nova Scotia Health, Build Nova Scotia and the Department of Health and Wellness will assess the buildings and services and determine where improvements can be made.Short said the master planning will look at what the new acute care tower isn’t addressing.Supporting a growing population”As the central zone is growing and the province is growing, what services that aren’t going to be met in that new tower do we need to support the growing population and the changes in health-care needs? So the master planning is the work that we’re doing with our clinical groups to look at the services of the future,” Short said.”And then these architecture firms will come in and look at what that’s going to look like. So what the buildings will look like, where they might be able to be located, what things will be in those buildings.”The Victoria General site has been plagued with issues, including problems involving flooding, rodents and its elevators. The facility has to be sustained for the time being so it can be functional while the acute care tower is being built, Short said, but the long-term plan is for the VG buildings to eventually be demolished. MORE TOP STORIESABOUT THE AUTHORAnjuli Patil is a reporter with CBC Nova Scotia’s digital team.With files from Information Morning