- The idea of reconstructing the hospital in Lens was launched in 2012.
- The project has been delayed, in particular because of the creation of regional hospital groups.
- The State has almost doubled its subsidy, the amount of which is now 192 million euros.
Everything is coming just in time… In mid-January, the Minister of Health, Agnès Buzyn, announced the payment of an additional subsidy for the construction of the new hospital in Lens, in Pas-de-Calais. Just under one hundred million euros, a large part of which will be used to make up for the financial losses accumulated in recent years.
The first time that the idea was raised of building a new hospital in Lens, it was in 2012. Preparing the reconstruction of the old building, aging, was then one of the main missions of the director at the time, freshly appointed by the Regional Health Agency (ARS), Edmond Mackowiak. Finally, things went fairly quickly and, in January 2016, a project of architects was selected. A few months earlier, the State had announced "a subsidy of up to 102 million euros for a global budget of 280 million at the start," recalls Thierry Daubresse, chairman of the supervisory board of the CHR of Lens.
A rather beneficial delay in the end
However, things did not go as planned thereafter. "The project was delayed two years because of the complexity of the procedures, but especially because of the construction of hospital groups in the territories," he continues. Instead of being confined to the perimeter of Lens, the new hospital became a pivotal establishment for the Lens-Béthune-Hénin-La Bassée hospital group. "The project had to revise its ambition upwards, not in terms of size, but rather in terms of innovation and digital", explains Thierry Daubresse.
In short, an evil for a good, since the final project is now that of a digital hospital, anticipating the ambitions of the ministry's 2022 health plan. “There will, for example, be an automated and secure disposal of waste which allows us to reduce operating costs,” explains the chairman of the supervisory board. Cutting-edge techniques that generate savings but also require an additional investment of around 28 million euros.
"Lens hospital is in great financial difficulty"
This is, in part, what convinced the State of the need to put 30 million into the pot for "updating the project" and 60 million in the form of "capital aid". “The Lens hospital has been in great financial difficulty for many years. We have all the same reduced the debt by half since 2010 but without this extension of the State, the new project would have started on bad bases ”, recognizes Thierry Daubresse.
Today, the project is therefore stopped with a budget of just under 310 million euros. Accessibility work has started. On the other hand, the construction site of the hospital itself will not be launched, "at the end of 2020, but rather at the beginning of 2021."
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- Construction site
- Lens
- Hospital
- Health