Richmond Hospital expansion project sizes up
Acute care tower previously announced in 2018 is going to be bigger than originally planned
A new acute care tower planned for Richmond Hospital will be bigger than what was originally announced in 2018.
"It will be far larger, far grander and far more ambitious than the plan announced two years ago," said Premier John Horgan at a news conference.
The nine-storey project includes a new emergency department and intensive care unit, and a new medical imaging unit. It will add 110 new beds, bringing the total at the hospital to 350.
Dr. Richard Chan, an emergency room physician at the hospital, said patient visits to the emergency room have increased 40 per cent in the last decade.
"Our community has long outgrown the current facility," said Chan. "Our hospital is often over 100 per cent capacity."
Horgan could not give the final budget estimate for the expanded project but did say it would be "several hundreds of millions of dollars more."
The business plan is expected to be finalized by the fall. Horgan said construction could be completed by 2024.
The hospital opened in 1966.