GLACE BAY, N.S. — Another step in the region’s health-care redevelopment has been taken as the province looks for a consultant to provide design services for the Glace Bay Hospital.
The tender for design consulting services for Glace Bay General Hospital renovations and addition closes June 17.
The CBRM health-care redevelopment was announced in June 2018. It is intended to modernize health-care facilities and will also include the loss of emergency departments in New Waterford and North Sydney. It includes a major expansion of the emergency department and surgical services at the Glace Bay Hospital.
“The expanded emergency department will be twice as large as the current one, with more exam and patient rooms,” said Deborah Bayer, communications adviser with Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal. “The renovation in the operating room area will improve the pre- and post-operation areas allowing for improved infection control practices and patient privacy.”
Once the design contract is awarded in the next six-eight weeks, physicians, nurses and frontline staff from emergency and surgical services will begin working with the design team to create a design that will meet the needs of patients, staff and the community, Bayer said.
She called the project an opportunity to make significant improvements in how care is delivered to patients.
The work is intended to expand services and improve access to health care, while also providing modern facilities that it’s hoped will assist in recruiting efforts.
The redevelopment is a multi-year project and expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. It is a partnership between the Government of Nova Scotia and Nova Scotia Health Authority.
While it was not initially considered part of the redevelopment itself, the health authority recently noted that the construction of a six-station satellite renal dialysis unit to Glace Bay Hospital is expected to be complete by late summer or early fall.
Other components of the redevelopment are also underway in New Waterford, North Sydney and Sydney. They include an expansion of the Cape Breton Cancer Centre and the emergency department at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital, new community health centres in New Waterford and North Sydney, and a new central laundry in North Sydney.
