Summerland has joined the push for the construction of the proposed patient care facility at Penticton Regional Hospital.
Municipal council is sending a letter to the province in support of PRH patient care project, asking for a commitment by the province to construct the facility in the “very near future.”
The plan for PRH expansion calls for a four-storey patient care tower that would host a medical school, surgical suites, outpatient clinics and an oncology centre, plus a new five-storey parkade nearby.
So far, the Regional Hospital District of Okanagan-Similkameen has committed $120 million to the build, while the hospital foundation has pledged $20 million, leaving a $160-million funding gap for the province to fill.
At a municipal council meeting, Mayor Janice Perrino reported on a delegation June 26 to Kelowna to meet with Minister of Health Mike De Jong about ambulatory patient care tower.
“It was an excellent meeting and minister De Jong asked a lot of good questions and although noncommittal he was very supportive,” said the mayor, who is also the chair of the Regional Hospital District of Okanagan - Similkameen and executive director of the South Okanagan Similkameen Medical Foundation.
“We have a lot of work to do to the get project to the top of the list at the provincial level.”
“That hospital is amazing,” said Perrino. “It is so overdue for expansion.” It currently operates at 110 per cent of capacity, she said.
The 60-year-old hospital serves 90,000 people in the South Okanagan and Similkameen. The expansion would triple the size.
She noted that all present and past directors of the hospital have signed on in support of the expansion. The project is already the number one priority of Interior Health.
“We want this to be the province’s number one project.”
She urges all councils and organizations in the hospital’s coverage area to make their support known to the provincial government.
“This is not a $300 million project,” because of the local funding, she said. The expansion would “get the Baby Boomers through to the end of their lives.”
The basement of the hospital tower would be devoted to training doctors and medical technicians through the University of B.C. Okanagan medical school.
The expansion would allow for greater efficiency, so there would not be additional staffing costs when it opens, she said.