#50years50stories | A collective achievement opens its doors
As the new CHUM (Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal) prepared to open its doors in 2017, years of planning, construction and collective effort were coming to fruition. Behind this landmark project stood governments, philanthropic partners, builders and employees, each contributing in their own way to the creation of a new institution destined to play a leading role in Quebec's healthcare system.
Built at a cost of $3.6 billion, the new CHUM brought together on a single site all the teams from Hôtel-Dieu, Hôpital Notre-Dame and Hôpital Saint-Luc, its three founding hospitals. Here, patient care, research and teaching coexisted and evolved together, fostering innovation across multiple specialties to improve care for the population.
The CHUM then entrusted NATIONAL with building partnerships with the business community and supporting the various phases of its opening activities, held over three days. The objectives were to introduce this unique health care institution to staff, their families and the public, give a human face to this major public project, and allow those who had brought it to life to see the result of their work.
To achieve that, every experience was designed to bring people closer to the new CHUM. Guided tours, Open House activities, video messages from partners, institutions and public figures, along with other opportunities to connect, gave visitors an inside look at the CHUM while highlighting the contribution of everyone who had helped bring it to life.
NATIONAL supported CHUM’s Public Affairs and Partnerships team in delivering all of the opening activities. As a key partner, NATIONAL contributed directly to the tremendous success of this memorable weekend by orchestrating communications, coordinating public and private events, and providing strategic counsel throughout. The official inauguration brought together government and institutional leaders, while the Open House welcomed the public into parts of the facility and gave them the opportunity to meet the professionals who would work there. The presence of Quebec’s leading media and the resulting positive coverage introduced the new CHUM well beyond its walls, just weeks before the first patients began arriving.
The result went far beyond unveiling a major construction project. The opening transformed the new CHUM into a place that began to belong to the people who had made it possible.
Because an institution truly comes to life when the people who built it begin to recognize it as their own.
Thank you to Serge Paquette for sharing this story.
#NATIONAL50