A proposed $86-million ambulatory care expansion at Penticton Regional Hospital has gained local support, but provincial government approval could be a long way off.
The Okanagan-Similkameen Regional Hospital District board has ranked the PRH project as its top priority for capital improvement projects within the regional district.
Hospital district chairman Walter Despot of Keremeos noted PRH is the primary hospital for the South Okanagan-Similkameen and urged the provincial government and Interior Health to declare the ambulatory care upgrade as their next priority and proceed with a business case for the project.
Lorraine Ferguson, Interior Health‘s health service administrator for the South Okanagan, said Thursday a consultant recently reviewed the space requirements at PRH.
“The hospital is a very difficult building to find your way around,” she said. “More and more you can improve efficiencies if you have all of your ambulatory care out-patient services in one building.”
Plans call for a two-storey ambulatory care building to be constructed in what is now the hospital‘s main parking lot off Government Street. A new multi-level parkade with pay parking would be built on the south side of the hospital off Industrial Avenue.
Ferguson said the new structure would house all out-patient services including lab, X-Ray, day surgery, and other facilities including a new operating room.
“We have done a plan identifying the services we need. Now we need the business case,” she said. “We have to do all of the drawings and things to determine the actual cost. We estimate it at about $86 million at this point.”
The second floor of the building would include unfinished space for 60 acute care beds to accommodate future growth at the hospital. The existing ambulatory care area would be used to expand the hospital emergency ward.
Ferguson emphasized that the project still needs approval from Victoria and start of construction could be at least two or three years away.
Despot, who was re-elected as chairman of the regional hospital district board Thursday, said he sees the project as the district‘s top funding goal for 2010. He acknowledged it will be challenging, but hopes it will receive fiscal support from the province and Interior Health.
“Interior Health and the ministry have committed $433 million to Vernon and Kelowna (hospital upgrades) and basically they are strapped for cash,” he said.
“So as to how we‘re going to do it and when, I really don‘t know.”
Despot said he hopes discussions with health ministry officials will begin soon, leading to possible funding approval in the not-too-far-distant future.
“Our concern is to keep Penticton Regional a very viable regional hospital. If we wait too long, it‘s going to lose that and we don‘t want to see that happen,” he said.
