An over 150-year-old research wing at Montreal’s Douglas Hospital has been flooded after burst pipes inundated four laboratories containing years of mental health research and highly sensitive scientific equipment.
Researchers say this is the latest incident to underscore the growing strain on the aging Verdun health-care and research facility — which they add have been raising alarm bells among staff for years.
“We’ve known this building is very old and has had some serious leaks almost every year for the last 10 years,” said McGill associate professor in psychiatry Mark Brandon. “It’s a recurring nightmare, and this is the worst.”
His concerns were echoed by neuroscience colleague Sylvain Williams, who said that water damage has been a problem at the research centre for at least 20 years.
“Many of the labs have very sophisticated equipment, I would say, (worth) several hundreds of thousands (of dollars) or up to $2 million of instruments could have been damaged here,” he said, adding that he estimates 60 per cent of the building was damaged by water.
Brandon, whose work focuses on Alzheimer’s disease, estimates the flooding caused more than $1 million in damage to his lab, which contained at least 10 years worth of research.
“My lab is completely decimated,” Brandon said. “We were running in and out of the lab as water was pouring down on us, just trying to save the most expensive equipment.”
Researchers say the final cost in damages is still unclear.
The flooding began on the second floor of the Lehmann Pavillion, which was built in 1896, due to “exceptionally unfavorable weather conditions” and “aging infrastructure” that led to a major water leak that burst through the ceiling and onto the first floor, according to a statement from the Douglas Mental Health University Institute.
“There was a lot of damage on the first floor,” Williams said. “Unfortunately, things started getting worse because the pipes started bursting on the second floor on one side of the wing.”
Monday’s flooding was the second instance of water damage at the Lehmann building in the past two years, Brandon said, with the first incident involving a leak in the electrical room that resulted in a fire causing the building — and the 100 freezers containing brain tissue samples — to lose power.
Videos taken of the flooding show water gushing from the ceiling as staff place large garbage bins below to mitigate the water leak. The video also shows ceiling panels being catapulted onto the floor as torrential beams of water flowed from cracks in the pipes.
Labs at the Lehmann building specialize in research relating multiple facets of mental health, like Alzheimer’s disease, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Much of the research within the wing will be “significantly stalled,” according to Brandon.
The flooding is not the first time researchers have seen the consequences of stalled renovations at Douglas Hospital. Memory clinic director Simon Ducharme said that staff have been waging a constant fight to convince the government to greenlight a new modernization project for the Institute.
“We’ve been raising the alarm that the entire Douglas Institute, both the patient areas and the research areas are extremely run down,” he told CityNews. “There has been an urgent need for a new hospital and research center for many years.”
Williams said there were discussions happening a few years ago about modernizing the facilities, but the government eventually decided not to move forward.
“It’s really unfortunate because we have outstanding scientists here,” including hundreds of trainees from McGill, he said. “They are working in an environment that is subpar, unfortunately.”
The pipe burst drew the ire of Québec solidaire MNA for Verdun Alejandra Zaga Mendez, who just a week before launched a National Assembly petition that gathered over 600 signatures and urged the government to push forward the stalled $2 million renovation she says was quietly shelved in 2020.
The petition also says that 65 per cent of the buildings in the Douglas Institute are classified as being in “poor” or “very poor condition” according to the government’s own infrastructure criteria.
“A ceiling literally collapsed at the Douglas Institute due to water damage,” Zaga Mendez penned in a statement. “This situation is simply untenable! I have been urging the CAQ to take action and renovate the Douglas Institute for months. Is Sonia Bélanger waiting for the entire building to collapse before taking action?”
Health Minister Sonia Bélanger said through a spokesperson that the images of the damage were “deplorable.”
“We do not wish to see this in our health facilities,” she said in an email from her communications director. Bélanger said that significant investments have been made to update health facilities in recent years, including an additional $435 million added in the last year via Quebec’s infrastructure plan.
The email did not specify whether any major investments are planned for the Douglas.
Ducharme added that the hospital has not seen any renovations in decades, aside from recent upgrades to the emergency room. That means that all the inpatient units, outpatient clinics and research areas have not received an overhaul “as long as we can remember,” Ducharme said.
While the damages in Monday’s flooding were limited to the research areas of the hospital, Ducharme says it’s only a “matter of time” until staff see something similar in the clinical care areas.
According to the hospital, a specialized disaster response team is already on site, working with Douglas Institute’s health and safety teams to clean and secure the premises.
As a precautionary measure, the water supply has been temporarily shut off in three neighbouring buildings, they add.
Nobody, including staff and patients, was injured during Monday’s flooding.
— With files from the Canadian Press