Alberta government commits $137M for Calgary hospital expansion

The Alberta government says it will fund an expansion at one of Calgary's busiest hospitals.

The Peter Lougheed Centre, which was built in 1988, is to receive $137 million to enlarge its emergency room and to provide more mental health services.

The project is expected to be completed by 2024.

Premier Jason Kenney says Calgary's population has doubled since the hospital was built, as have the number of patients that visit it.

He says the hospital has 80,000 patients a year twice as many as it was built to serve.

Kenney says the expansion is long overdue.

"For the better part of a decade now, folks who have worked in this emergency ward have been calling on the provincial government, Alberta Health Services, to invest in expanding its capacity so you can properly safely serve the patients who come through here," he said at a Calgary news conference Wednesday.

"We are allocating $137 million to transform this aging and overburdened department into one of the biggest and best emergency departments in Canada."