The second phase of the Royal Columbian Hospital rebuild will be launched next week as a design-built project rather than a public-private partnership as previously planned.
A new acute care tower and a larger emergency department are part of the second phase – currently the first part of the new hospital is under construction behind the current hospital, and it will include a 36,000-square-metre Mental Health and Substance Use Wellness Centre which will replace the 30-bed Sherbrooke Centre, expected to open in 2020.
The second phase will officially get underway this week, on Sept. 27, when a request for qualifications to design and build it will be issued.
The decision to proceed as a design-build model for this phase was made after a review by Fraser Health executive and was subsequently approved by the provincial Treasury Board. They determined Fraser Health had an experienced and knowledgeable project team that, along with qualified external advisors, would be able to ensure a successful project under the design-build model.
“We felt given the quality of the team here at Royal Columbian, especially how people work together and how they know the building, the existing building, which continue to have to be maintained like the new ones this made sense to them, it made sense to Fraser Health and it made sense to patients, it made sense for the whole health care team and so that’s why we decided to go this route at Royal Columbian Hospital,” Adrian Dix, minister of health, told the Record.
The second phase, which will be owned and operated by Fraser Health, will include 229 new beds in the ER and the acute care tower, MRIs, a neonatal intensive care unit and a helipad.
Darcy called the new mental health and substance use centre “state-of-the-art” and part of the province’s work to transform the system of care for people with mental health issues and addictions.
When complete, the new 36,500-square-metre Mental Health and Substance Use Wellness Centre will include Fraser Health's first dedicated older-adult psychiatric unit for seniors, with 20 beds, a 10-bed psychiatric high-acuity unit, 45 beds for acute mental-health inpatient care, clinical teaching space, more outpatient clinics, a new energy centre and a 450-stall parkade.
