The Interior Health Authority (IHA) is moving toward developing a conceptual plan for an expansion of the Nicola Valley Hospital and Health Centre’s emergency room.
The expansion was announced back in November and has been labelled a top priority by the health authority.
At the end of the month, the IHA will meet with the Thompson Regional Hospital District (TRHD) to discuss the parameters of joint funding for the conceptual planning phase of the hospital’s expansion.
The funding will allow IHA to move toward coming together with architects and other professionals to examine the hospital site in an effort to draw up the conceptual plan, Berni Easson, IHA health services administrator for Thompson-Cariboo rural, said.
Easson said from that conceptual plan, the estimated cost to expand the Merritt hospital’s emergency room can be determined.
The funding needed is expected to be six figures, although the exact amount is unclear at this time.
The IHA and TRHD will have to determine how much of the funding each party is covering before the full amount is disclosed, IHA spokesperson Michaela Swan said.
She said the funds for conceptual planning will be spent this fiscal year.
The project itself will centre on the emergency room’s physical expansion and improving its layout, Easson told the Herald.
“It is a small space, so we want to ensure that we have an emergency room that makes it so there can be more efficiencies for the team that work in there, and better accommodate the equipment that we need and have,” Easson said.
“The ER has not been renovated for as many years as people can remember,” she said.
Health Minister Terry Lake has said the emergency department at the local hospital deals with about 11,000 cases per year, a significant number given the size of the facility.
