By this time in 2031, a brand new 11-floor hospital tower should be opening in Prince George.
Health Minister Adrian Dix announced the project’s business plan has been approved outside of UHNBC this afternoon (Thursday).
“The Northern Health Authority will increase from 309,000 to 380,000 [people] over the next 20 years,” Dix said. “The number of people over 70 will increase from 32,500 to 62,000 in the next 20 years.”
The tower will add 109 new beds, pushing the hospital from 276 to 385 beds.
“It will add, expand, and modernize mental health programs, surgical programs, and cardiac programs,” Dix said. “It will have an 83-bed mental health and substance use unit for youth and adults.”
The tower plans also include a new six-bed cardiac-care unit and a new 20-bed cardiac step-down unit, and five new operating rooms.
“This is a great announcement for the North,” Northern Health President and CEO Ciro Panessa said.
“Not only will patients benefit from significant improvements to cardiac, surgical and mental-health services, but our teams providing care will have new, state-of-the-art spaces to continue to stabilize and grow these services.”
The tower will be built on the southeast section of the hospital between Edmonton Street and Winnipeg Street.
Construction is set to begin in 2026 and end in 2031 with a budget of over $1.5 billion.
A 471 space parkade is currently being built next to the BC Cancer Centre for the North to help accommodate the eventual increase in traffic.
Dix is also confident the province will be able to staff the tower, as healthcare staffing shortages continue to plague northern BC and the province as a whole.
He said in the last 16 months since implementing a new healthcare payment model, the province has added “831 net new Longitudinal Family Physicians in the province… and last year we added 6,000 net new nurses to our province.”
Dix explained these increases are just staying ahead of the increase in need for health care from an aging population.
“We have added 550,000 people to MSP (Medical Service Plan) in three years, an 11 per cent increase” he said, explaining that only around 45,000 people a year were newly requiring the plan around 10 years ago.
“When you increase the number of healthcare workers by 25 per cent, as we have, but the population increases by 17 per cent, we are making ground but not as much as what it might imply.”
Dix also acknowledged the numerous emergency rooms in smaller northern BC communities who have had to close emergency rooms for periods of time due to staffing shortages.
“[It has happened] too many times. Once is too many,” he said. “Staffing emergency rooms is a challenge everywhere. 31 communities have been facing closures.”
Dix said that is being combated with hiring incentives for nurses and other positions that can be specific to each community.
“We are throwing everything at this… we are fighting every single [closure].”
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