Corner Brook hospital 'back on track,' Marshall says

The province has awarded $17 million worth of contracts to get construction of the new Corner Brook hospital back on track.

Premier Tom Marshall made the announcement on Thursday in the west coast city.

"I'm obviously extremely pleased. This got off track a number of years ago," he said. 

"It's now back on track, and is moving forward exactly in accordance with the plan that the experts and the Department of Health and the experts of the Department of Transportation and Works have come up with."

He said almost $11 million of that total will go to the Corner Brook Care Team, a group of companies that will design and build five structures that will make up the new hospital complex.

"We're going with a design build, which brings the builders into the process a lot sooner, and they make sure that what's being built, they can build it, and can build it with a fair amount of rapidity," Marshall said.

He said the designs for the first two buildings will be completed by the end of 2014, and construction should start in 2015.

Marshall said the goal is to have the new hospital ready to open by 2020, which is about 13 years after the project was first announced.