It's been a long wait, but Coast residents got their first chance to see signs of work on the St. Mary's Hospital expansion and renovation Friday when politicians, nurses, doctors, and volunteers turned sod for the project.
B.C. Minister of Health Kevin Falcon made the trip to Sechet for the sod turning saying the province recognizes that aging hospitals, like St. Mary's, which was built in 1963, are in need of upgrades to reflect their age and the changing communities around them.
"The population back in those days was about 10,000 people on the Sunshine Coast. Today we have a population of almost 30,000 and in the next decade, that will increase by another 10 per cent," he said. "We have a lot of aging infrastructure and we've also go a lot of growing population and we have to make sure our investments are keeping up with our infrastructure."
Among the changes the expansion will bring will be LEED gold certification, making St. Mary's the only hospital in Vancouver Coastal Health's (VCH) region to meet such high environmental standards. The new hospital will also have 100 per cent, single patient rooms, which experts says will drastically help control infection in the hospital.
Gibsons mayor and chair of the Regional Hospital District Barry Janyk spoke with a tone of relief after the "tough slog" over the years in securing funding from VCH and the Hospital District for the $44.5-million expansion and renovation.
He, like Sechelt Mayor Darren Inkster, praised the Sechelt Indian Band (SIB) for the donation of land where St. Mary's sits.
"The elders' wisdom and their foresight and their kindness and their co-operation that allowed for the establishment of this hospital around 50 years ago needs to be recognized," Janyk said.
SIB Chief Garry Feschuk recalled with humour how things used to be for the Band elders when the only hospital on the Sunshine Coast was in Garden Bay.
"It was really comical. A lot of our elders still talk about it. A lot the times they would be going up there to give birth to children and the taxi driver's main concern was that they didn't have the baby in his taxi," Feschuk recalled.
Feschuk added that construction on the expansion and renovation presented a perfect opportunity to continue SIB's partnership with the rest of the Coast in St. Mary's Hospital by providing jobs for SIB workers.
Contracts for the various phases of work for the project are currently being finalized. The new expansion is expected to be complete sometime in 2012.
