Work begins on new $27.6M Eagle Ridge Hospital emergency room

Work has begun on a $27.6-million upgrade to Port Moody’s Eagle Ridge Hospital.

The project will see the construction of a new emergency department for the nearly 35-year-old facility.

“It’s now increased to more than 50,000 people per year, it’s going to increase in 2030 to 68,000 patients a year. That would be a 36 per cent increase in visits in the same physical space.”

The provincial government is funding $22.6 million of the job, with the Eagle Ridge Hospital Foundation contributing the remaining $5 million.

WATCH: (Aired March 1, 2017) Hospital donor spends hours in hallway

1:50 Hospital donor spends hours in hallway

“Everybody wants to do the best they can in the health-care setting that we’re in,” said Fraser Health president and CEO Dr. Victoria Lee.

“Sometimes that overcrowding and congestion can be an inhibitor to that level of care we want to provide. Not only are we enhancing the number of care spaces that we’ll have we’ll also take the opportunity to improve the effectiveness of the space we have as well as the efficiency of the space that we have.”

The upgrade was initially announced in March 2017 by the prior BC Liberal government. At the time, Fraser Health was listed as the major funding contributor, not the province.

According to the Ministry of Health, the ER expansion will more than double the number of spaces in the department from 19 to 39.

It will also include four new isolation rooms, two new trauma resuscitation bays and separate entrances for walk-in patients and ambulances. A new chemical decontamination area is also being built.

Construction on the expansion is expected to be completed by late 2020.