# McGill University Health Centre

The McGill University Health Centre (MUHC; French: Centre universitaire de santé McGill; CUSM) is one of two major healthcare networks in the city of Montreal, Quebec. It is affiliated with McGill University and one of the largest medical complexes in Montreal. It is the largest hospital system in Canada by bed capacity. The majority of its funding comes from Quebec taxpayers through the Ministry of Health and Social Services. The centre provides inpatient and ambulatory care.

## History

The centre announced that it would consolidate its services in a single facility in 2007; it was a long and troubled process. The project was budgeted at around $700 million but cost around $1.3 billion; it was meant to take only three years but took much longer. The project was completed in 2015. The facility replaced the existing facilities of the Royal Victoria Hospital (on April 26, 2015), the Montreal Children's Hospital (on May 24, 2015), and the Montreal Chest Institute (on June 14, 2015). It did not replace the Montreal General Hospital, Montreal Neurological Hospital, or Hôpital de Lachine. It added a cancer centre, and a part of the building houses the Research Institute of the MUHC, which contains a Biosafety level 3 laboratory.
The McGill University Health Centre is part of a $2.355 billion redevelopment project on three sites: the Glen, the Montreal General Hospital, and Lachine Hospital.

## Role

MUHC is a bilingual academic health network and one of the largest and most modern in North America.
As of 2021, the institution comprises:
* 1,389 physicians
* 5,284 nurses and patient attendants
* 113 pharmacists
* 71 dentists
It also comprises:
* 3,813 other professionals including technicians
* 2,862 researchers, investigators, and postdoctoral fellows
* 323 hospital managers
* 517 volunteers
Being affiliated with the McGill University Faculty of Medicine, the MUHC also comprises:
* 2,862 medical residents
* 1,806 nursing students
* 731 other medical students
* 141 fellows in adult and paediatric medicine
* 21 dental residents
* 11 residents in oral surgery
* 348 students in other healthcare fields
The institution's mandate is to provide tertiary and quaternary care to the population of Montreal, Quebec, and adjacent provinces. The extended network of regions and health service centres for which the MUHC has the mandate to provide tertiary and quaternary care is known officially as the Réseau universitaire intégré de santé et de services sociaux McGill, or RUISSS McGill. The territory of the RUISSS McGill represents approximately 63% of Quebec's land area, covering most of the western and northern regions of the province.
The MUHC is the largest combined adult and children's hospital in the province, providing all aspects of specialized and complex care to both populations among its sites, with pediatric, adult, and cancer services being combined at the Glen site.
As a principal teaching site of the Faculty of Medicine of McGill University, a key activity is medical education. In addition, the Research Institute of the MUHC is an international research centre with a worldwide reputation in the field of biomedical sciences and health care. The MUHC RI has:
* ongoing research collaborations with 51 countries worldwide
* around 1,800 peer-reviewed scientific publications per year
* 1,600 ongoing projects (including clinical trials and others)
* over 180,000 research participants per year

## Hospitals part of the MUHC

Source:
* Glen superhospital
** Royal Victoria Hospital
** Montreal Children's Hospital
** Montreal Chest Institute
* Montreal General Hospital
** Allan Memorial Institute (contains MGH's outpatient psychiatry)
* Montreal Neurological Hospital
* Hôpital de Lachine

## Affiliated hospitals

The following hospitals are affiliated with the McGill Faculty of Medicine but are not integral parts of the MUHC:
* Lakeshore General Hospital
* Jewish General Hospital
* St. Mary's Hospital
* Douglas Mental Health University Institute
* Shriners Hospital for Children

## Public transit connections

Vendôme metro and train station connect to the hospital through an accessible modern entrance pavilion. The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) was criticized when the pedestrian tunnel to the hospital opened in 2015 as the station was not accessible. Work began in 2017 to make the station accessible, completing in 2021.
The station has 5 elevators, an underground tunnel to the MUHC mega hospital, an Exo train station, and a Metro station. It was inaugurated on May 31, 2021. The 17, 37, 90, 102, 104, 105, 124, 371, and 420 buses stop near or at the hospital. The Metro Orange Line and the Vaudreuil-Hudson, Candiac, and Saint-Jérôme lines from the train station also stop here.

## Controversies

The 2004–11 tenure of Arthur Porter, a politically active Montreal physician, as the hospital's CEO received $22.5 million in consulting fees from SNC-Lavalin and then awarded the firm with a $1.3 billion contract related to the construction of the hospital. These dealings were found to be in violation of the Quebec Health Act. Porter resigned on December 5, 2011. Porter left Canada and was apprehended by Interpol agents with his wife in Panama, where he was imprisoned and died from cancer in 2015 while awaiting his extradition to Quebec.