PRINCE GEORGE – The operating rooms at University Hospital of Northern B.C. were built in the 1980s and are far too inadequate to meet modern technological needs. Nor can a cancer patient get something as simple as a stent at this hospital.
Back in 2017, during a trip to the wildfire evacuation sites, newly-minted Health Minister Adrian Dix was asked about the needs of this hospital.
“Well, after some time, you know,” he noted at the time. In 2008, I think I had visited operating rooms that were in 2008, were seen as too small and insufficiently modern for both the demands and the ambitions of some of the hospitals here. Right? And that was 2008. I understand some initial plans is being made and obviously we’ll be supporting Northern Health as they go through that.”
Flash forward more than six years later and two major projects show up in Northern Health’s capital projects list. The first was nearly $2 million for cardiac care unit upgrades at University Hospital in Northern BC.
“Our capital stock in health care, though, there’s something called the Facility Condition Index and for all those people who think I use too many statistics, here’s another one, which is point five to province-wide and all our facilities and that is poor,” says Dix. “That means poor and all the facilities across BC. So we’re constantly making small capital improvements and that would be one of them.”
The next line item on the capital list is of more significance. It reads: “UHNBC New Acute Tower Works.” But as with any major project, Minister Dix says, early works need to be done.
