Premier Christy Clark visited Penticton Wednesday and announced the expansion of the Penticton Regional Hospital.

(MEAGHAN ARCHER / iNFOnews.ca)

PENTICTON - Premier Christy Clark announced this morning Penticton will get the hospital tower expansion it has been waiting for.

“As Penticton continues to grow, so does the demand on services Penticton families rely on, including the hospital,” Clark said in a press release.

The Penticton Regional Hospital Patient Care Tower is bigger than originally expected but the government and local hospital officials created a plan that will offer more space for the same amount of money.

“The place needs fixin’,” Clark said during a luncheon speech at the Lakeside Resort. She gave a big shout out to MLA Dan Ashton for all the work he’s done to push this project forward beginning when he was mayor of Penticton.

The hospital will include approximately 26,700 square metres of new health care facilities and significantly improve access to services.

The tower will be constructed in two phases — the first includes construction of a walk-in care centre, surgical services centre, 84 medical-surgical inpatient beds in single patient rooms, a new medical device reprocessing unit, and space for the UBC Faculty of Medicine Program.

The second phase involves the renovation of vacated areas in the current hospital to allow the expansion of the emergency department to almost four times the size. Renovations will be done to existing support areas of pharmacy, laundry and material stores.

Clark said it is possible for the entire construction to be completed in three and a half years, creating more than 1910 jobs over the life of the project.

The project budget is $325 million, jointly funded by the provincial government, the Okanagan-Similkameen Regional Hospital District ($122 million), and the South Okanagan Similkameen Medical Foundation ($20 million).

The province will release a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for companies interesting in bidding on designing, building, financing and maintaining the new tower. The RFQ is expected to be released later this summer and up to three companies will be shortlisted after a review of applications. One company will be selected at the end of the 18-month process.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Meaghan Archer at marcher@infotelnews.ca or call 250-488-3065. To contact the editor, email mjones@infotelnews.ca or call 250-718-2724.

News from © iNFOnews, 2014