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With construction on the one-site hospital 99 per cent complete, Sudbury Regional Hospital is set to open the hospital's new, permanent entrance on the east side of the building Nov. 23.
“In the new entrance, we will have a gift shop and the Tim Hortons kiosk. The new cafeteria will be opening probably a week after that,” said interim CEO Bertha Paulse.
The one-site hospital consists of additions and renovations onto Sudbury Regional Hospital's Laurentian site.
The first phase of the hospital construction, which took place during the late 1990s and early 2000s, faced massive cost overruns, and ended up costing $137 million.
The latest phase of the project, which has a cost of $125 million, began in March 2007.
A number of programs and departments at the Laurentian site will be moving to their permanent locations in the building within the next two weeks, said Paulse.
These include the intensive rehabilitation unit, the professional practice group, the Haven program, the Sudbury Regional Hospital Foundation and emergency preparedness and planning, she said.
A number of building inspections are currently underway, said Paulse. The building is scheduled to be fully complete Dec. 2.
“The architects are doing their inspections, and the engineers are doing their inspections to make sure we're fully complaint with building codes and the fire systems are fully operational,” she said.
“Any deficiencies that they identify, they point out to the contractor, which is still on site.”
All of the programs currently housed at the Memorial site will move to the Laurentian site from the middle to the end of January.
Alternate level of care (ALC) patients are scheduled to be housed in the Memorial site by mid-February. The North East Local Health Integration Network (NE LHIN) is providing funding to temporarily care for these patients.
Programs currently housed at the St. Joseph's Health Centre site will move to the one-site hospital between the middle of March and the end of March, said Paulse.
