The expansion of Boundary Trails Health Centre (BTHC) got a major boost last week with a significant contribution from the BTHC Foundation.
The foundation on Nov. 9 presented Southern Health-Santé Sud with its second installment payment, bringing its total contribution to the expansion to $5 million.
It is now halfway to a $10 million pledge to bring expanded and enhanced health care services closer to home.
“This is just exceptional to have the support from the community,” said BTHC Foundation board chair Brent Menzies. “I’m just thankful for the community support because without them, we wouldn’t be here.”
He added it is great to see the expansion moving along so well.
“It’s exciting to see. Everything is coming together, and it’s a wonderful facility. It’s going to be great for patients.”
“It’s incredible to see how the community has come together so quickly to raise the money … it’s really exciting to see,” said Joel Nelson, director of health services at BTHC. “I’m often getting comments from staff or people coming in to the facility, commenting on how big the expansion is and how excited that they’ve seen the progress.”
Nelson also commented on what the project is going to mean for health care in the region.
“It allows us to expand services within the community. It gives new work spaces for staff to engage in care with patients and also provide that high-quality care that we take a lot of pride in at our facility,” he said. “We know that there’s needs within the community, and we want to meet those needs.”
Kyle MacNair, implementation lead for the RHA, oversees capital projects for the region and he noted it is good news all around with not only the significant financial support but the progress of the expansion project.
They are now at a point where they are starting on staff training in preparation for starting to move things over to the new community services building.
The next phase then will be renovation of the existing hospital space with work slated to start next spring and continue into 2027.
“It’s fairly extensive, about a third of the hospital will get renovated,” MacNair noted, citing how key aspects of the project will include more emergency services as well as a new operating room theatre, a larger cancer care unit, and an expanded ambulatory care unit
As far as the new 24-bed in-patient unit, he anticipates they will be starting to take patients into the new space in the new year.
“Every day we’re working on recruitment and retention of staffing,” MacNair added. “We’re not going to expand all 24 beds on day one. We’re going to do a phased expansion as staffing is brought on … it’s progressing every day.”
