London Shriners snubbed again in bid for Mtl hospital

Shriners in London, Ont., have again been snubbed in their bid to have the Montreal Shriners Hospital for Children moved to their city.

Shriners meeting in Anaheim, Calif., overwhelmingly rejected on Tuesday a motion put forward by the London chapter.

Two years ago, the Shriners rejected a similar motion proposed by London-based members of the group.

The Shriners plan to build a new a $100-million hospital in Montreal as part of the McGill University Health Centre — a so-called superhospital to be built near the downtown.

Montreal already has a 40-bed Shriners Canadian hospital that employs 250 people as it delivers free medical treatment to young patients from around the world with orthopedic diseases and injuries. The building on Mount Royal iseight decades old and long overdue for either modernization or replacement.

Before the 2005 decision, Montreal and London had waged a five-year battle — which at times escalated to name-calling and mud-slinging, with suggestions about contaminated soil at the Quebec site— over the location of the prestigious hospital.

The dispute surfaced again in early 2007, whentop officials of the fraternal order said they were upset the site was not being 100 per cent decontaminated.

The London Shriners argue that space will be limited at the new site and are concerned with construction delays.

The Shrine of North America, founded in 1872, has nearly 500,000 members.

The group operates more than 20 children's hospitals across the continent, treating severe burns and orthopedic conditions.