The Northern Health Authority has advanced its move-in date for the new Mills Memorial Hospital from next spring to the end of November.
“We’d previously anticipated the hospital move in date to be in early spring 2025. We were always aware, however, that timelines are estimates and depend on many factors,” said Northern Health communications officer Sarah Artis of the $632.6 million project to replace both the old Mills and the old Seven Sisters mental health facility.
But completion targets are now advanced enough for Northern Health to start planning how it will make the physical move from the old hospital building to the new one.
“We are working hard to make sure the transition to the new hospital is as positive and comfortable an experience as possible for patients and staff,” said Artis.
“For a hospital the size of Mills Memorial Hospital the move will likely be completed within one week and the actual patient move in one day.”
The movement of patients from one building to another won’t be confined to just the two buildings.
Artis said other hospitals in the region will take on some of the duties normally handled at Mills to reduce activity levels leading up to the move.
The move from the old Seven Sisters to the new one was also completed well ahead of time.
Patients shifted to the new Seven Sisters building earlier this month and the old Seven Sisters has already been demolished, a move authority officials said was necessary to fit the design of the new hospital.
Although the move to the new hospital may be ahead of schedule, the official timeline for the completion of the entire project has not changed.
The old hospital will be demolished to make room for a parking lot much larger than the current one and the project site will then be fully landscaped. All of that will take place through 2025 and into 2026.
As of January, the Northern Health Authority was saying construction on all five floors of the new building is almost complete with testing of services such as air handling underway. Equipment and furniture are also arriving.
Construction began in the spring of 2021 with the clearing of a forested site just north of the current Mills to provide the space for the new structure.
So far, Northern Health is saying the project is within the $632.6 million allocated budget. That’s a $10 million increase from the original figure to include an advanced neo-natal care unit.
The new Seven Sisters is included in the overall project budget.
The new hospital will have 78 beds, nearly double the old one’s official capacity.
The increase means going to 41 general beds from 25, adding two maternity beds so there will be five, adding a fourth labour room bed, going from three intensive care ward beds to eight and doubling the current 10-bed psychiatric unit.
The emergency department is also doubling in size, from 10 beds to 20 and the new Seven Sisters has 25 beds, an increase of five.
With the new hospital approaching completion, Northern Health has been taking care not to present it as a Terrace-only facility to the detriment of other communities.
“The new Mills Memorial Hospital will offer orthopedic surgeries to support the enhanced trauma program,” the authority states in a release.
“The demand for orthopedic surgeries is high enough that with more trauma-centered surgeries happening in Terrace, more elective surgeries will likely need to happen in Kitimat and Prince Rupert where they are already taking place.”