Infrastructure Ontario and St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital have issued a request for qualifications (RFQ) to build and finance the hospital's Emergency, Ambulatory and Mental Health Redevelopment Project.

The project will result in a three-storey addition to the existing hospital, which will be constructed on the north-west side of the current hospital building. The new addition will be approximately 104,770 square feet and include the redevelopment of the:

• emergency department
• surgical suite
• Sterile Processing Department (SPD)
• acute mental health unit with 15 inpatient beds and ambulatory services

The request for qualifications is the first step in the process to select a team to build and finance the project. Submissions will be reviewed to pre-qualify project teams with the required construction capability, experience and financial capacity to undertake a project of this size andcomplexity. These teams will then be invited to respond to a request for proposals, which will be issued in early 2015.

Infrastructure Ontario (IO) and the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care are working with St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital to redevelop the facility, which will be publicly-owned, controlled and accountable.

IO is a Crown agency of the Province of Ontario that works to deliver public benefits through partnerships with the private sector. IO delivers large, complex public infrastructure projects using a made-in-Ontario modern procurement and project management practice called Alternative Financing and Procurement (AFP). Infrastructure Ontario also partners with the private sector to manage one of the largest real estate portfolios in Canada, provides municipalities and eligible public sector clients with loans to renew public infrastructure, and leverages its private-sector expertise to advise the provincial public sector clients on commercial transactions.

St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital (STEGH) is a 166-bed facility providing comprehensive 24-hour coverage in Internal Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics, Pediatrics, Anesthesia, Emergency and Family Medicine. As a fully accredited hospital, STEGH is proud to serve the city of St. Thomas and all eight municipalities within the County of Elgin.

Dr. Eric Hoskins, Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, said:

"The St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital redevelopment is part of our government's commitment to provide the right care, at the right time, in the right place. Today's announcement is another important step towards providing St. Thomas area patients with new, state-of-the-art facilities to meet their present and future health care needs."

The deadline for submission of qualification proposals is 25 September 2014.

See RFQ: http://goo.gl/saLizA