WITH a new Mills Memorial Hospital expected to cost at least $360 million, it poses the question what kind of health care facility can that money buy?
In Penticton, for example, $312.46 million is providing a six-storey, 281,531 square foot patient care tower and an extensive renovation of the current structure. For sake of comparison, the current Mills Memorial Hospital is 124,969 square feet in size.
And within that Penticton tower will be an ambulatory care centre with outpatient services including cardiology, neurology, orthopedics, respiratory, pre-surgical screening, maternal/child clinics, and lab and satellite medical imaging.
Surgical services include five operating rooms (Mills now has three rooms), three minor procedure rooms, two endoscopy rooms, one cystoscopy room, catheter insertion/urodynamic room; and infusion services.
Best news of all for northwestern B.C. residents is to look for this equivalent – inpatient beds in single patient rooms each with its own washroom containing shower, sink and toilet.
There are to be 84 of these in Penticton but the exact number here has yet to be established. Mills now has 44 beds, 10 of which are located in the regional psychiatric ward.
And each of the Penticton rooms will have exterior windows allowing for natural light and views.
A medical device reprocessing unit is also to be located at the Penticton tower as is space for the UBC faculty of medicine program.
When the tower is complete, attention turns to renovating vacant areas of the current hospital structure to allow the expansion of the emergency department into a space almost four times the size of the current department, as well as renovations to existing support areas of pharmacy, laundry and material (supplies and equipment) stores.
In addition, the Penticton project also features a six-storey parkade of 169,700 square feet containing 480 stalls.
That’s no doubt far more than what’s required here but it’s now a regular occurrence to have all three parking areas – staff, visitor and the one adjacent to the psychiatric ward entrance – be completely full as well as having vehicles parked up and down Haugland.
Of the $312.46 million budget, the Okanagan-Similkameen Regional Hospital District is providing $117 million through property taxes, the South Okanagan Similkameen Medical Foundation is contributing $20 million, Interior Health, the equivalent to the Northern Health Authority, is providing $14.4 million and the provincial portion is $161.1 million.
The project is expected to provide more than 1,910 construction jobs.
Finance minister Mike de Jong, in announcing a new Mills here Feb. 28, optimistically predicted construction within four years. In the case of the Penticton project, its concept plan was first submitted in 2012, which is the starting phase where the Mills build is now. Actual construction did not start until mid-2016 and completion is set for late 2019 – seven years in all.