The four-phase project includes a new nine-floor patient tower that will add 113 new beds to the hospital. The province has approved a long-awaited major expansion and improvements to Richmond Hospital.
The four-phase project includes a new nine-floor patient tower that will add 113 new beds to the hospital, more operating rooms, an expanded emergency department, and improved outpatient services in a redeveloped second tower.
COVID-19: Do not be afraid to go to hospital if you need care, says Dr. Henry | Vancouver Sun. The eight-year-long project’s estimated cost ballooned from $375 million to $860.8 million due to changes and additions to the plan over the past four years.
Health Minister Adrian Dix said the expansion is long overdue and the cost is appropriate. “This hospital was built in 1964, the year I was born,” he said. “Here in Richmond, they deserve a hospital built for the 21st century and that’s what they’re going to get.”
The hospital’s emergency department will expand to 82 spaces from 60 spaces. The current eight operating rooms will be enlarged with three new ones added to accommodate space for more high-tech equipment. Pre- and post-surgical care spaces will more than double to 69 from 26.
The new tower will also include an intensive care unit, a medical imaging department with four CT scanners and two MRIs, a pharmacy and a short-stay pediatrics unit.
The hospital’s vascular and general surgery consultant, Dr. Daniel Kopac, said the announcement means health-care practitioners “will be able to do more than ‘just manage,’” and patients will benefit.
“I can tell you that it will be a very much needed improvement to the emergency department with the increased space, with the increased number of beds so that patients don’t have to wait in the waiting room,” he said……..
Source: vancouversun.com
