Labs flooded as pipes burst at Montreal mental health hospital institute

MONTREAL — Four labs were damaged after burst pipes sent water pouring through an aging building at a Montreal mental health hospital and research centre on Monday, in what a staff member describes as the latest sign the facility is in desperate need of repair.

Video of the incident shows water raining down onto equipment in one of the labs, as a waterlogged ceiling tile gives way and crashes to the floor.

The local health authority says Monday’s incident was major and damaged the second and ground floors of the Lehmann pavilion of the Douglas Mental Health University Institute.

“The Douglas Mental Health University Institute confirms that significant water damage occurred in four different locations in a corridor on the second floor of the Lehmann pavilion,” spokesperson Hélène Bergeron-Gamache wrote in an email.

Bergeron-Gamache said the recent cold weather as well as the “aging infrastructure of the Douglas Institute” were likely at the root of the problem.

Bergeron-Gamache said nobody was injured, but four research labs were badly affected and water also had to be cut to several neighbouring buildings.

Teams are on-site to repair the damage as quickly as possible and to minimize the disruption to research activity, the email added.

Sylvain Williams, a neuroscientist who works at the Douglas, said he believed the flooding was caused by broken piping related to the sprinkler system. He said the work taking place in the labs is largely focused on research into Alzheimer’s and depression.

“Many of the labs have very sophisticated equipment, I would say, (worth) several hundreds of thousands (of dollars) or up to $2 million of instruments could have been damaged here,” he said in a phone interview. “So we’re still assessing the damage, but it’s certainly going to be very expensive.”

Williams described the pipe incident as shocking, though not surprising. He said the building has experienced “recurring” problems in recent years, including a fire in an electrical box and leaking ceilings.

“I was shocked yesterday when I saw the water coming down from those pipes and damaging all these instruments,” he said. “But at the same time, I wasn’t totally surprised because I was expecting that something like this would happen.”

A website for the Douglas suggests the building that was damaged was built between 1894 and 1910.

Williams said staff at the hospital have long been calling on the provincial government to put up the funds for a new hospital and research centre. He said there were discussions happening a few years ago about modernizing the facilities, but the government eventually decided not to move forward.

“It’s really unfortunate because we have outstanding scientists here,” including hundreds of trainees from McGill, he said. “They are working in an environment that is subpar, unfortunately.”

Health Minister Sonia Bélanger said through a spokesperson that the images of the damage were “deplorable.”

“We do not wish to see this in our health facilities,” she said in an email from her communications director. Bélanger said that significant investments have been made to update health facilities in recent years, including an additional $435 million added in the last year via Quebec’s infrastructure plan.

The email did not specify whether any major investments are planned for the Douglas.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 27, 2026.

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press