The province has approved a $417 million patient care tower at Royal Inland Hospital by 2022.
The nine-storey tower will have three floors of inpatient beds (including mental health and medical/surgical beds), a surgical suite, a perinatal centre and private labour and delivery rooms, obstetrics and postpartum beds and a neonatal intensive care unit.
The expansion will add 22 new inpatient beds, making for a total of 267 at the facility. With the new beds, the percentage of single-bed rooms will jump from 18 per cent to 78 per cent. Those won't be all new rooms – Interior Health media relations director Lindsay Darshan said that some multi-occupancy rooms will be converted into single-occupancy ones.
Post-renovation, the new patient care tower will have 107 single-bed rooms.
The tower project is also expected to include underground and surface parking and a permanent heliport on top of the building.
The province and Interior Health are contributing $225 million, the Thompson Regional Hospital District is contributing $172 and the Royal Inland Hospital Foundation is contributing $20 million.
New $417M patient care tower at RIH. https://t.co/8ixaLWHs5J @Interior_Health @TNRD @RIHFOUND @toddstonebc @PeterMilobar pic.twitter.com/PaEsQGthBc
— Terry Lake (@TerryLakeMLA) February 6, 2017
"The new patient care tower will support the delivery of high-quality care to the many patients from across Interior Health who require the services of our health-care professionals," said Interior Health Board chair John O'Fee.
Phase two of the project will include renovations to the existing facility. The project will double the current emergency room space as well as upgrading the pediatric unit, post-anaesthetic recovery department and the morgue.
Construction is scheduled to begin in 2018.