Majority of beds in redeveloped Burnaby Hospital will be in single-person rooms
Credit to Author: David Carrigg| Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2019 02:09:21 +0000
Burnaby Hospital will undergo a two-phase, $1.3-billion redevelopment that will add 112 beds and include a state-of-the-art cancer treatment facility, and expansions to the emergency room and maternity ward, the B.C. government announced on Tuesday.
The project will start in two years with the creation of a six-storey building that will house a medical and surgical in-patient unit, 18-bed maternity floor, 30-bed mental health and addictions unit and a top-floor mental health outdoor therapy space. This is expected to be finished in 2023 at a cost of $560 million and will make the aging hospital’s West Wing and Cascade buildings redundant.
Also starting in 2021 will be a massive upgrade and expansion of the hospital’s support facilities building and nursing tower that will add 15 treatment bays in the emergency room (from 47 to 62), add preoperative and post-operative recovery spaces and four new operating rooms among other things.
When these projects are complete, the West Wing and Cascade buildings will be demolished and work will commence on a $740-million dollar patient-care tower that will have 160 beds and include the cancer treatment facility. It is expected to open in 2027. Once this is finished the total number of beds will be 397, compared to the current 285.
B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix told Postmedia News that while the increase in bed numbers was significant, the bigger change was that the bulk of the beds would be in single rooms.
“What’s significant about it is there are about 55 single-person rooms now at Burnaby Hospital and that number is going up to 297,” Dix said. “That’s the new standard in many of our new hospitals for reasons of privacy and infection control.”
Burnaby Hospital — located north of Kincaid Street and east of Ingleton Avenue — had its darkest times earlier this decade when the hospital was reporting higher than normal levels of C. difficile infection, prompting a warning letter from doctors to the Fraser Health Authority. The hospital has since improved its infection control, but at that time doctors reported 173 serious cases of the highly contagious and potentially deadly stomach bug between 2009 and mid 2011.
In 2012, Postmedia revealed a report had been released internally from a B.C. Liberal-led community consultation committee that stated the hospital was so old and under resourced it was “struggling to meet its mandate.”
The 140-page report pointed out that at the time the oncology department served 10,000 patients but was only funded for 1,800, with patient numbers rising. At that time it also had shared rooms for dying patients.
Dix acknowledged that it had taken a long time for the Burnaby Hospital redevelopment to come to fruition, but that it was not unusual for major hospital projects to take a long time to get from concept to shovels in the ground.
“Sometimes these projects take a long time,” he said. “You’re building the hospital for the next decades and health care is going to look differently and the planning is important.”
Dix said the bulk of the funding for this project was coming from the provincial government, but the Burnaby Hospital Foundation would be contributing to the tune of “tens of millions” of dollars.
Speaking to media in front of the hospital on Tuesday, Premier John Horgan said that Burnaby was growing rapidly and the hospital had to be upgraded and modernized to keep up. Burnaby is the province’s third-largest city and the number of patients requiring hospital care is expected to increase almost 60 per cent by 2036.
Horgan said the investment would be among the province’s largest ever health care investments. The province was also committed to spend $1.9 billion relocating and developing the St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver that will have 548 beds.
Dix said the most rewarding part of the announcement was seeing the reaction of front-line health care workers labouring in a facility that dates back in parts to 1952.
“Talking to the people and seeing their reaction,” he said. “The hope and joy. They know the next few years will be challenging, but there is hope about things getting better and a real pride in that.”
Opposition health critic Norm Letnick said he was supportive of the project.
“This falls directly in line with the direction the previous government had and that’s quite normal for health care,” he said. “It occupies 40 per cent of the budget so you’re not going to see a lot of twists and turns from one government to another. You see that in the (NDP government) primary care initiatives that are generally the ones we started. These are long term processes.”
with files from Stephanie Ip