Brandon’s newest ICU may be less than a month away from completion.
Prairie Mountain Health welcomed Manitoba Health, Seniors and Long-Term Care Minister Uzoma Asagwara to a construction milestone event earlier in April, and good news is fast approaching for the project.
“Patients first day will be sometime in May,” said Prairie Mountain Health CEO Treena Slate. “There probably won’t be too much ceremony that day, it’ll be a busy, hectic day for our staff as they move patients from our existing intensive care unit in to the new one, but we’re hoping for some time in early May.”
According to Slate, the first order of business is to get the existing ten beds into the new space. The plan is to add an additional six beds over time. But even before the new beds are brought in, the new space will be a noticeable improvement in patient care in many ways.
“It’s a bright, welcoming space, so when we move we will move all of our patients on that day, so we’ll have ten beds operating on that day,” said Slate. “Eventually, over time, with increased staffing and training, we will open twelve beds. Hopefully, that will happen sometime within the next year. The second floor of that building will be a new medical unit, and we’ll have 15 beds operating to start with.”
Other immediately obvious benefits will include centralization of their equipment on a pillar known as the boom, which will cut down on cords and clutter and make the space more inviting still
“The biggest benefit to our new facility is that it was very much designed by our staff, with our patients and families in mind,” Slate said “It’s very much focused on inviting families to participate and be involved in care. There’s a beautiful outdoor space that patients can access and we can even get beds through the door.”
Something Prairie Mountain Health is aware of is the possibility for another major public health event, similar to what hospitals around the country were preparing for at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the lessons learned from that pandemic have made their way into the construction of this unit.
“If we ever had to deal with another public health emergency, we do have 16 physical beds in the intensive care unit, so that would help expand the needs there as much as needed,” Slate said. “It’s also built with isolation and infection control practices in mind. We’re able to create a safe infection control area in one wing, we can lock it down essentially to make it safe in terms of the air exchange system. It’s much better capacity than we’ve had in the past.”
When all is said and done, Slate said she expects the total project cost to be about $110 million, and she also hopes the project will have opportunities for even further expansion as Brandon’s population grows.
“It’s state of the art care, close to home. That’s the strongest message I can share. I can say it was designed by our staff for the people we serve, and we are very excited about that.”
