Reporter and new Shriners Hospital for Children

London may not have missed out on much
Mon, April 21, 2008
Shriners hospital in Montreal turns out to be no big deal

By PATRICK MALONEY, SUN MEDIA

London isn’t getting a Shriners hospital. Montreal may not, either.

While Montreal beat the Forest City in a push to land a new Canadian hospital from the international fraternity, it now looks like the planned facility will be much more humble than many expected.

“It’s probably not a hospital,” Ralph Semb, chairperson of the Shriners Hospitals board of trustees, said from his Massachusetts home.

“We’re really (considering) just a small facility. We’re talking 20 beds. It’s just a little bump.”

Reports out of Montreal last week had high-ranking Shriners approving construction of the new facility in Montreal’s west end. Semb, however, said that’s untrue.


The group, he says, agreed to write a letter to McGill University to discuss the possibility of affiliating a proposed new university hospital with a Shriners facility.

The Shriners have not yet done a business case for the Montreal development, Semb said.

“We’re looking at the possibility of a health-care facility” as opposed to a hospital, he said.

“You don’t have full-blown services.

“If we needed services, we would get them from the hospital next door.”

The oft-cited cost estimate — $100 million — has been floating around for 20 years and probably isn’t accurate, he added.

The existing Shriners hospital in Montreal was built in 1925. London was selected by a committee as the site of a new facility but failed in 2005 to get the votes needed to move it here.

At that time, it was expected the contested hospital would have 40 to 60 beds. Semb says he was always surprised by the fierce competition between London and Montreal.

“I never could figure out why there was so much do about it,” he said.

Attempts to reach leaders of the local Shriners were unsuccessful.

Patrick Maloney is a Free Press reporter.