KGH Site Update

Patient Care Tower

After a well-deserved break for the Christmas holidays, the construction crews working on the new Kelowna General Hospital Patient Care Tower are back hard at work.

Graham Construction, the company building the tower, is almost finished closing in the second through sixth floors. Doing so allows them to heat the inside of the building, which is a big help to the workers doing the electrical and mechanical work inside. (It’s a lot easier to do work such as installing pipe when you don’t have to wear gloves to keep your hands warm!) Work is well underway on the mechanical and electrical rough-in on all floors.

All “mock-ups” have now been completed successfully. What happens in this process is a life-size replica of representative rooms is constructed on site, often including actual hospital equipment. Designers, planners and staff who will be working in building then get a chance to see if the rooms suit their needs. They then have the chance to offer suggestions for necessary changes before the actual rooms are built. This process is especially critical for such things as Operating Rooms and Trauma Bays, where correct placement of beds, equipment, medical gases, lighting and other things is very important.

UBC/Parkade

Thanks to the incredibly hard work of everyone on the Kelowna and Vernon Hospitals Project Team, the Infusion Health team (especially Graham Construction and Black & McDonald) and the UBC team, the new UBC Faculty of Medicine and Interior Health Clinical Academic Campus (CAC) was finished on December 3.

Perhaps some of the most welcome news came just in time for Christmas, when the new 350 stall East Parkade opened. We hope the additional parking will relieve some of the pressure staff and our neighbours have been feeling for the last year as this important construction project has taken place.

Crews are just putting the finishing touches on the CAC building interior, while KGH Library staff have moved in and UBC Faculty of Medicine staff prepare to move into their new offices as well. We expect to celebrate the completion of the Clinical Academic Campus some time in the coming weeks. We’ll keep you posted on the details.