The provincial government has set aside $3-million in this year’s budget to move women’s health services from the Health Sciences to the Janeway in an effort to free up in-patient bed capacity.

Interim Health Minister John Haggie says that’s part of discussions to see if they should replicate the model being used at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax.

He says they have women’s health in the IWK Children’s Hospital, and it has worked “extremely well.” Haggie says there are “significant bed vacancies at the Janeway, and it seems ironic to have 40 per cent of your beds vacant at one end of the corridor, and 110 per cent of your beds occupied at the other end of the corridor.”

He says discussions about how to proceed are happening with NLHS CEO Pat Parfrey and his team.