Jack Zaleski introduced Broek Bosma, Chief Development Officer, St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation. Broek leads all fundraising campaigns for the Foundation with one of the many small teams at St. Paul’s working to build the new hospital.
Firstly, Broek said, “Thank you!” The club and the Rotary Hearing Foundation have made the massive commitment of raising $6M to be happily matched by the St. Paul’s Foundation, for a total of $12M.
The location of the new hospital is near Science World on 18.5 acres. The 1st phase alone is 1.4m square feet of acute care space.
What will happen with the old building? It was sold last August for approx. $1B to Concord Pacific Developments Inc. Every dollar of this will go into the build of the new site. The government’s contribution is approx. 50%, the rest needed is from the sale of the old building and the Foundation fundraising.
One thing to highlight is the courtyard space between building. It will be the 2nd largest gathering plaza in all of BC. The plan is to do something remarkable in that space.
The health care boulevard will be where you drop off patients. It will be set up like an airport, e.g., drop off at the nearest door to the services needed. Tremendous thought has gone into streamlining movement to areas needed.
There will be a number of really important tech advances in the new St. Paul’s. The command centre will be state of the art, the place where all data is collected. Every patient in the building will be tracked here. They will be the 1st to know of all medical alerts and will be able to quickly send in support. It’s a chance to leap into the 21st century of patient record care, one that will be fully embraced. Another of the advantages is being able to track patients with the correct technology even when they are back at home. If there is a medical emergency, then appropriate partners can be alerted.
The new hospital will increase from the current 400 beds to 555 beds, an increase of 155 beds. All beds will be single patient bedrooms. Will be digitally accessed. Patients will be able to control things such as lights, curtains from their bed. The new site will be 3x larger than current site.
A highlight: they will have automated guided vehicles that will pick up carts, e.g., meals, medications, linens. These vehicles will have their own dedicated elevators. These currently are running very successfully in Montreal.
The ambulatory care centre will be the busiest. It will be linked to the research centre (600K square foot site).
They have already passed the red line (the construction) with land now officially broken. The brush has been cleared; the construction crew building set up. On track, well so far, for the completion in 2026. The research tower is scheduled to open concurrently. PCL Constructors Westcoast Inc. won the bid for construction of the main building. Jack Zaleski, Wilf Wassersleben, Stu Bird, and Nick Blom broke ground a few weeks ago.
There will be a new street, New High Street, that will connect to Station Street and Prior Street. The other existing streets in the area will remain the same.
The hospital has been designed with a lot of consideration for hearing, sight, and physical disabilities. One of the ideas is talking about how to soundproof the building so with regards to the neighboring rail yard, St. Paul’s is in discussion with the city to address possible noise issues. This may involve covering the rail yard making it a thoroughfare above it for walkers, though nothing concrete has been decided.
Phase 1 is the main hospital building, Phase II the Research Centre, and Residential Centre. Phase III the Expansion Centre. Office/research Centres, and Hotel will be included in Phase II. It will be a medical destination that will be able to make use of the hotel for visiting lecturers, potential employees, etc.
Everyone is very excited about what this new building will bring to Vancouver. It will change the area, the east side of Vancouver. Will have a large addiction and mental health resources to support locals in need of those services.
The sisters of providence in 1894 started St. Paul’s.
CLICK HERE to read a bit about the history. One remaining sister, moved to Edmonton. Sister Anne remains on the society Board so is aware of all that is going on. The sisters are overjoyed with how the hospital has progressed.
There is ongoing consultation process with VGH to prevent overlap between the two centres. They are looking at how they work together, what services are shared and what are more prevalent in one or the other. E.g., St. Paul’s is the heart centre, VGH brain & stroke. VGH will keep & own trauma, whereas St. Paul’s has been specifically designed to provide detailed mental health services and addiction.
Dr. Jane Lea added that Dr. Westerberg & Jane do procedures at VGH for certain things. Collaboration occurs on an ongoing basis between the two facilities.
This is true for UBC as well. St. Paul’s is fully affiliated with UBC. UBC students are always at St. Paul’s, this will continue in the new location. Together they are trying to work out how to be a Phase III clinical trial site. UBC will have dedicated space at the new St. Paul’s in the main hospital and then also in the research building.
Finally, St. Paul’s is grateful for our relationship and partnership. Greetings and thanks also passed on from Dr. Brian Westerberg and Dr. Jane Lea.
Dr. Adriana Zylmans and Mr. Erik van der Ven will present an overview of the events and activities led by the Society from March 12, 2020 to today and beyond. Also, their presentation will address the struggles the Dutch people faced during WWII, in particular the hunger winter of 1945 and the bombardment in Bezuidenhout, near Den Haag, in the Netherlands.
