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Part 2: He made wait times a national priority

Part 3: Health care and politics go hand in hand

As Montreal’s skyline changes dramatically with the construction of two new superhospitals, an ominous cloud hovers in the form of sharp funding cuts.

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Indeed, some hospital administrators fear for the future of Quebec’s health-care system as the two superhospitals approach completion.

“They’re white elephants,” Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, executive director of the Jewish General Hospital, has said of the massive projects.

“Where are they going to get the operating budgets to run them?”

Rosenberg’s candour — which he expressed in an interview last May, before Health Minister Gaétan Barrette dispatched a special adviser to the Jewish General to chop the institution’s operating budget — belies the optimism surrounding the megaprojects.

The superhospitals are supposed to usher in an age of ultra-specialized medicine — healing for the 21st century. They will house some of the latest cutting-edge medical equipment — everything from robotic surgical arms to super-accurate 3D medical-imaging machines — and every patient will have a private room.