Local News
Favourable winter has crews making good progress on hospital expansion
A spokesperson for Southern Health-Sante Sud says thanks to a very favourable winter, construction is progressing well on the massive expansion to the hospital in Steinbach. Kyle MacNair is Implementation Lead for Clinical Programming. He explains the scope of the project has changed since the expansion was first announced at Bethesda Regional Health Centre. MacNair says it started with the dialysis unit. The six-bay unit officially opened on October 16th of last year. "And has been progressing very well in terms of getting more and more patients on board and into it and getting their dialysis treatments here locally," says MacNair. "So that was kind of the first phase of the project." Also being constructed is a new two-storey building with a basement. MacNair says the basement will include a new lab facility, replacing the existing smaller one. There will also be a new shipping and receiving area with proper loading docks built. MacNair says on the main floor of that new building will be a 15-bed medicine unit. He notes seven of those beds will be palliative care, which is being generously supported by the Bethesda Foundation. He notes the second floor of that building, which was added to the project when the Bethesda Foundation became involved, is the addition of three new operating room suites and the pre-op and post-op care areas associated with the new surgical units. In the existing hospital, MacNair says they are planning to reinstate about eight acute care beds. He notes in total there will be 23 more acute beds and then the three operating rooms. As mentioned, MacNair says construction is going very well. He notes if you drive by right now you will see that the steel structure is up and all of the floors have been constructed. "The roof is on and each of the floors is built and poured," he says. MacNair says this week crews will finish the first exterior wall cladding. Then, starting at the basement level they will work on the mechanical and electrical rough ins on the inside of the building. Following that, they can poly the exterior in order to seal it up. MacNair says all of that work should get them ready for summer tasks including the installation of windows and completing ceiling projects. They will also start installing the drywall, which MacNair says will help give a better visual of what the rooms will look like. In summer, crews should also be working on installing some of the major mechanical and electrical components. He notes there is a penthouse that will contain air handling units and some of the major mechanical equipment. "Those are going to come in over the summer," he notes. "They are going to get craned in from the street, up onto the top, up into the penthouse." According to MacNair, though crews are making good progress, construction is still in the early stages. He notes they are targeting construction to be complete in December of 2025. Following that, they will need to install the equipment and furnish the rooms, which could take another two or three months. "Hopefully we'll have the first patient care activities in the facility in February/ March of 2026," he says, noting that they are getting more and more confident with these timelines. MacNair says once construction of the new build is complete, there are still tie-ins to the existing building that need to be finished. He explains that once they move the new operating rooms to the second floor, they will place a few more beds in the existing surgery unit, which could take several months. He notes at some point in 2026 the whole project should be completed, including all renovations. MacNair says the total cost of this project is approximately $60 million. The Bethesda Foundation has committed $8 million over 10 years towards the work. Darrel Penner is the foundation's Board Chair. He says the bulk of that funding commitment has already been raised. However, he notes this fall they will re-launch their capital campaign, which was paused as a result of the pandemic. The goal of the capital campaign is to raise $22 million. Penner says they are currently sitting at about $15.5 million. Penner says their $8 million commitment towards the hospital expansion is clearly the largest contribution in their history. Before this, the largest contribution was $5.3 million towards the expansion of Rest Haven personal care home in Steinbach. "We've been fortunate that because of all the great donors we've had in the community, our brand has gained pretty good recognition in the area," he points out. "And people they value what we do in the community." Penner explains that when they first pledged $8 million towards the hospital expansion project, they had a wish list attached. That list included new operating suites and enhancements to the palliative care rooms. "We were a driving force to get the surgery suites built," he says. "Initially there were discussions about doing the renovation and I think Southern Health just felt the long-term vision for this region required three large modern surgery suites and that's what we're getting." MacNair says it has been incredible to have this partnership with the Bethesda Foundation throughout this project. He adds that not only was the foundation instrumental in the operating rooms portion of this project and the palliative care spaces, but their contribution has also helped with on-site parking. He explains that with the new addition sitting on the largest parking lot on campus, they needed to acquire more property to build another parking lot. MacNair says the Bethesda Foundation helped make that possible.