Alison Bannerman, a planner with Interior Health, says the new inpatient ward will boast more privacy, easier navigation and better care.
(CHARLOTTE HELSTON / iNFOnews.ca)
June 05, 2014 - 2:25 PM
VERNON - The new ward at Vernon Jubilee Hospital could be welcoming patients around the beginning of 2016.
Construction to complete the top two floors of Vernon Jubilee Hospital’s Polson Tower launched today with a celebration attended by Interior Health, the North Okanagan Columbia Shuswap Regional Hospital District and local dignitaries.
The $29.6 million unit will feature 60 beds, the majority in private rooms. Of the 60 beds, 45 are not new but are being relocated from elsewhere in the hospital.
Stuart Olson Dominion Construction Ltd. with Parkin Architects are aiming to have the two floors finished by late fall 2015.
“It’s so exciting because we’re actually moving forward,” Nancy Serwo, Vernon Jubilee health services administrator says. “This is so important for the community.”
She says the new space will help ease congestion in the hospital and better align the hospital with Canada’s standard for health care facilities.
“It really brings us into the 21st century,” Serwo says.
Interior Health planner Alison Bannerman has been involved in the unit’s layout and says the next step will come when construction crews install the first walls.
“We’ll do some mock-ups,” Bannerman says. “We still have time to make some changes if they’re required.”
Post-occupancy feedback from patients identified daylight, windows, views, better wayfinding and more privacy as characteristics they’d like to see in their hospital.
“Those are the things we were able to give them with the Polson Tower,” Bannerman says.
The provincial government, the Vernon Jubilee Hospital Foundation and the North Okanagan-Columbia-Shuswap Regional Hospital District are sharing the cost of the project. Units will be furnished with new equipment through the foundation’s ongoing Tower of Care campaign.
To contact the reporter for this story, email Charlotte Helston at chelston@infotelnews.ca or call 250-309-5230. To contact the editor, email mjones@infotelnews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
News from © iNFOnews, 2014