Local dignitaries gather in front of the crane on the Penticton hospital construction site. (Photo by Keith Lacey)
The massive construction crane that sits rising high into the Penticton sky represents not only a figurative symbol, but the piece of equipment that will be at the centre of building a new regional hospital that has been more than a decade in the making.
Last Friday morning, dignitaries from Interior Health, the City of Penticton and MLA Dan Ashton were joined by construction manager Ezio del Fatti to officially kick off the beginning of construction on the new $312-million Penticton Regional Hospital (PRH) Patient Care Tower.
Groundbreaking on the site took place in early July and preliminary construction work has been taking place since.
The huge crane that will carry construction materials has been on site for a few weeks and construction on the actual tower will begin this week.
Del Fatti is heading up the project for EllisDon Infrastructure, which was awarded the contract to build the new patient care tower at PRH in early 2016.
Maureen Thompson, Acute Health Services Manager with Interior Health, said this new hospital would ensure that residents from Penticton – and throughout the South Okanagan – will be able to access quality health care in a state-of-the-art facility that will serve the needs of patients for generations to come.
Discussion about the need for a new regional hospital to replace PRH dates back many years, said Thompson.
“We’ve been planning for this new patient care tower for a very, very long time,” said Thompson.
“This is making a statement telling everyone in the entire South Okanagan Valley that our new tower is getting built,” she said.
Del Fatti said the construction crane that will haul concrete and other building materials over the next several months rises 55 metres high and has a hoist ratio of 70 metres.
The concrete base that was built to support the massive crane is 30 feet by 30 feet in diameter and runs four feet deep into the ground.
Penticton is known to be a place where the wind howls on a regular basis, especially during the winter months, but crews will be able to continue to work safely under most weather conditions as long as winds don’t exceed 70 km/h and the temperature doesn’t dip below 20 degrees Celcius, he said.
The crane is capable of lifting materials that weigh up to 2,400 kilograms using the boom and up to 10,000 kilograms once materials are suspended using the mast of the crane, he said.
The height of the crane is 12 feet higher than the highest point once the tower is built, which will be used as a landing pad for a medical helicopter, he said.
A crew of about 200 construction workers will be on site to build the frame of the patient care tower over the next 12 months, he said.
The plan is to continue construction on the tower for several months before construction on a six-storey parkade will be built starting in the spring of 2017, he said.
During the entire construction phase, the existing hospital will continue to operate, which will provide certain challenges, he said.
Building the new tower and parkade “will be a bit like a chess game” over the next 12 months, he said.
Del Fatti, who has helped build three other large hospitals during his career, said the almost all of the existing hospital will remain intact during the entire construction phase.
A couple of smaller electrical rooms will have to be demolished from the existing hospital, he said.
Because there will be so many technical issues to deal with during the next three years of construction, del Fatti said he will have access to a mechanical engineer and electrical engineer every single day on the job site.
Noise and vibration can cause problems for patients trying to recover, so every precaution will be taken to limit the amount of noise and vibration during the construction of the tower and parkade during the next 12 months, he said.
British Columbia’s Premier Christy Clark was joined by numerous dignitaries for the official groundbreaking ceremony during the second week in July.
Clark said the hospital expansion project would result in improved health care for residents of Penticton and the entire South Okanagan region for generations to come.
Clark thanked all those who have worked hard to make it a reality.
“We all know someone who has needed hospital care and when that happens they deserve the best possible care, close to home in the South Okanagan and Similkameen,” she said. This is the value of a strong, growing economy, it gives us the ability to make investments in the services we all depend on.”
The hospital opened its doors at the current location in the early 1950s and it has been 25 years since the last major renovation.
The 281,700-square-foot patient care tower will bring together outpatient care services into one building, provide five modern operating rooms, expand the medical device processing/sterilization unit to nearly triple its current size and provide three floors of single-occupancy inpatient rooms with private washrooms.
Also included in the new tower is expanded space for the UBC Faculty of Medicine program.
“This is a historic day for health care in the South Okanagan and Similkameen,” said MLA Dan Ashton. “This expansion of our regional hospital will have long-lasting positive impacts in our community through job creation and improved patient experiences.”
The Penticton Regional Hospital Project will be constructed in two phases. Phase one includes the construction of a new patient care tower and parkade.
The tower will feature a new ambulatory care centre with outpatient services including cardiology, neurology, orthopedics, respiratory, pre-surgical screening, maternal/child clinics, and lab satellite medical imaging, surgical services including five operating rooms, three minor procedure rooms, two endoscopy rooms, one cystoscopy room, PICC line/urodynamic room; and infusion services.
There will also be 84 inpatient beds in single patient rooms each with its own washroom and a new medical device reprocessing unit.
Phase two involves the renovation of vacated areas in the current hospital 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 materiel (supplies and equipment) stores.
Full construction will begin very soon and the project is expected to take more than three years to complete. The total capital budget for the project is $312.5-million. The Okanagan-Similkameen Regional Hospital District is providing $117-million, the South Okanagan Similkameen Medical Foundation is contributing $20-million, Interior Health is providing $14.4-million and the provincial portion is $161.1-million.
By Keith Lacey
