A nearly $890 million replacement project for Duncan’s Cowichan District Hospital has taken a major step forward as land clearing at the Bell McKinnon Road site begins.

 

 

Initially scheduled for 2021, the North Cowichan property near the intersection of Herd Road and the Trans Canada Highway is being cleared this month ahead of a construction start planned for 2023, pushing the hospital’s completion target to 2027 after some three and-a-half years of building.

 

Island Health first outlined plans for Cowichan's hospital replacement in 2013. The vision was approved in 2018 by the province, and a business case was approved in 2020. Construction was originally targeted for a 2022 start.

 

The new facility will be three times larger than the current Cowichan District Hospital, located at 3045 Gibbons Road west of Duncan’s town centre, and just over three kilometres from the future hospital.

 

With a capacity for 204-beds, the new complex will span 515,000 square feet and open at a bed count of 185. 19 additional beds will be added as demand grows, Island Health states. A new emergency ward will accommodate up to 42,000 patient visits by 2035, triple the current capacity, along with a doubling of emergency spaces to 36 from 17.

 

The future site of Cowichan District Hospital, along the 6700-block of Bell McKinnon Road at Herd Road north of Duncan.  Google

 

Mental health services will be provided as a mental health psychiatry unit accommodating 20 inpatient beds, plus a four-bed psychiatric intensive care unit. The emergency ward will also include a dedicated acute care psychiatric space.

 

Traditional healing practices of First Nations will be integrated into hospital operations, Island Health says, to support First Nations’ needs during a patient’s hospital stay, including room for family members.

 

A birthing unit will accommodate 10 maternity beds and a nursery for moms and families. Island Health will incorporate a new model of care for moms, allowing them to remain in the birthing room with their infant until discharged.

 

Seven operating rooms (three more than Cowichan District Hospital’s current capacity) with a dedicated C-section room, and expanded medical imaging capacity round out the new hospital’s services.

 

Although no design has been publicly revealed, the new hospital will be constructed to achieve LEED Gold, an environmental standard that reduces energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Road network improvements in the area will be part of the overall scope of the project, as will an expansion of water and sewer services to the area, and transit improvements.

 

Parking will be free, according to Island Health, and free wifi will be provided to visitors and patients.

 

Funding for the $887.4 million budget is via $604.8 million from the province and $282.6 million from the Cowichan Valley Regional Hospital District and supports via the Cowichan District Hospital Foundation.

 

Island Health’s hospital infrastructure has seen significant modernization in recent years, starting with an expansion of Victoria’s Royal Jubilee Hospital through a new patient care tower completed in 2011. Hospitals in the Comox Valley and in Campbell River were also recently replaced, with both facilities opening in the fall of 2017. C

 

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