Patients return to Perth-Andover hospital
Hotel-Dieu Saint Joseph Hospital was emptied during March's flood
Patients are moving back to the Hotel-Dieu Saint Joseph Hospital in Perth-Andover today, roughly three months after the building was emptied during the village’s major flood.
While parts of the hospital are still too damaged to use, patients will be returned and some services will be restored on Monday.
Lab testing, diagnostic imaging, therapeutic and emergency services will be available starting at 8 a.m.
But patients at the hospital will notice some new additions to the hospital when they arrive.
Dean Cummings, the executive director of Upper River Valley Health, said portable trailers outside the hospital will make up for some of the building's lost space.
"The services that are going in those trailers would be the non-clinical areas, such as administration, medical-staff offices, some other departments as well," Cummings said.
"So our concentration in the hospital itself was accommodating all of the clinical areas we could in that facility."
The surgery and obstetrics departments will open later this summer after renovations are complete.
The record flood caused the village of 1,770 people to evacuate about one-third of the community. The flood level was roughly 1.5 metres higher than the last major flood in 1987.
Patients were scattered to different hospitals and facilities in Grand Falls and Plaster Rock.
Health Minister Madeleine Dubé has already said parts of the hospital were damaged beyond repair in the flood.
Cummings said the damaged areas are in the older parts of the building.
"The lower section of the older section of the building was flooded and that is basically totally destroyed," Cummings said.
"The second level of the old part of the building wasn't flooded but there was a firewall, or fire protection between the two floors, that was damaged."