The Bethesda Hospital expansion construction is rapidly progressing on the facility, and they are on track for full completion of the building in very early 2026.
That is according to Kyle MacNair, the Implementation Lead for Clinical Planning at Southern Health.
In regards to the exterior, MacNair informs they are working on the interior layers of the exterior.
“Right now, you can see a little bit of the final exterior veneer that's going on to the building at the lower levels, and that's going to be built up over fall and early winter. We're going to see about almost all of the exterior veneer being completed.”
He says there will be some final touches that will happen next spring which they can't do when it's cold, but the final exterior look of the building will be mostly complete this fall and winter.
MacNair adds that there is also a lot of activity happening on the interior. They are focusing their work on the lower levels and making their way up to the upper levels.
“So in the basement where the lab and some of the offices are gonna go, all the walls are put up and they're working on the chip rock boards in rooms, so most of the mechanical and electrical are already done.”
They predict that the interior finishes of the basement will be complete by January.
After that, they'll be finishing off the main floor, which is all the inpatient rooms.
“Mostly all the steel studs on the walls are up and some of the chip rock is done, and then it's going to progress through 2025.”
The last area that's going to be completed is the top floor where the ORs are.
MacNair says they have done some large pieces of the top floor.
“They put the mounting brackets for the OR booms up there, in these modern ORs, they have these booms that hang down with all the surgical equipment on this, the mounting brackets are up.”
He adds that in August, they had the opportunity to bring the surgical team in to look at the room with wooden examples of where the screens, the lights, and the equipment booms would be.
“We were able to get the surgical team in there with a stretcher and pretend there's a patient there, and look at the walls, and say can I see the blocks that I need? Can I see the timers that I need? Can I access the equipment that I need when I'm doing the surgery?”
MacNair says that was a good thing to do to ensure that the layout of the room is what is good for the clinical team.
He says they have had a pretty good summer and fall, besides the large rain event that occurred in mid-September.
“So at an active construction site, we had a few issues with the water cleanup that we had to manage in a pinch, but otherwise, certainly this fall, the temperatures have been pretty good for construction, for the exterior work that's still going on.”
MacNair says they are quite enthused by how things are going, and they are on track in terms of both timelines and budgets.
“We're still on track for full completion of the building in very early 2026.”
They expect an early 2026 start to delivering care on the site.
With files from Kenton Dyck