New Grace Hospital ER ready to open doors

The new Grace Hospital emergency room is set to open next week and it’s more than five times the size of the previous area.

The current Grace ER is at 7,000 feet with the new one measuring in at 38,000 feet. This means more rooms and less patient movement.

“Because we have more capacity and more rooms that have cardiac monitoring, we’re not having to move patients,” Grace Hospital COO Kellie O’Rourke said. “In the former department, there were only eight monitored spots out of the available 20 assessment areas and we were frequently having to move patients.”

“It really makes a difference in terms of the timeliness of care,” added O’Rourke. “People are able to focus, they’re not having to run and look for supplies. The supplies, the drugs that are needed are really adjacent.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "It really makes a difference in terms of the timeliness of care," added O'Rourke. "People are able to focus, they're not having to run and look for supplies. The supplies, the drugs that are needed are really adjacent."

O’Rourke said new technology will also be used as staff will be equipped with hands-free devices which will free them up from having to make phone calls.

The department will be open to the public beginning May 29 at 7:30 a.m., and the province said it expects to treat 35,000 patients this year. It comes at a cost of $43.8 million, and features an open-concept design, a large ambulance bay to reduce patient off-load times and a physical connection to the ACCESS Winnipeg West walk-in clinic.

RELATED: Phase 2 of health care changes behind schedule

Minister of Health Kelvin Goertzen said the design and the openness of the new facility sticks out to him.

“You can see from one place to the next,” Goertzen said.

“It’s important when we’re taking care of people, so nobody gets lost within in the system or if there’s somebody who needs a particular type of care, that they can be seen.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "It's important when we're taking care of people, so nobody gets lost within in the system or if there's somebody who needs a particular type of care, that they can be seen."

The Grace Hospital ER renovation is part of Phase 2 of the province’s health care changes. There are also plans to renovate the St. Boniface Hospital, but work is not expected to be done until the summer of 2019.

The province said the conversion of Seven Oaks ER department to an Urgent Care facility and the closure of Concordia’s ER will not happen until after the work at St. Boniface is complete.