Royal Inland Hospital - Gaglardi Patient Care Tower
Kamloops, BC Canada
Category: 2023 Healthcare, Unique Installation Challenge
Architect: Parkin Architects Western Ltd.
Designer: Parkin Architects Western Ltd.
Starnet Member:
Maxwell Floors Ltd.
Starnet Preferred Vendors:
Armstrong Flooring, Inc., Gerflor, Johnsonite By Tarkett, MAPEI, Roppe, Uzin Utz North America, Inc., Wagner Electronics
Project Strategy
The new Patient Care Tower (PCT) at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, BC was constructed on the Royal Inland Hospital (RIH) campus and is connected directly to the existing RIH facilities on five levels. The indicative design work is a nine-story building plus rooftop helipad, and two levels of underground parking.
The PCT is approximately 27,000 square meters or 288,000 square feet (gross floor area) of new clinical, administrative and support spaces. Program components included mental health and medical/surgical beds; new surgical suite; perinatal center and private labour and delivery rooms, obstetrics and postpartum beds; and a neonatal intensive care unit.
The PCT project will take place in two phases. Phase 1 is now complete. The design and construction of the Patient Care Tower, features single-patient rooms with walk-in showers and will bring Royal Inland Hospital up to current standards of care, improving working conditions, as well as infection control and prevention measures. Maxwell Floors has begun Phase 2, which will include a significant renovation and expansion to the emergency department, pediatrics, post-anesthetic recovery, and the morgue.
As part of Interior Health’s commitment to environmental sustainability and green buildings, the new Patient Care Tower was also designed and constructed to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification, further fostering a healthy and healing patient environment and workspace.
Maxwell Floors has excelled with P3 Private Public Partnership projects.
The RIH PCT is a P3 project, which will see EllisDon Infrastructure maintain the Patient Care Tower once construction is complete for a term of 30 years.
Other clinical and non-clinical features of the Royal Inland Hospital Patient Care Tower include:
1 Surgical services
2 Medical/surgical inpatient unit
3 Mental health and substance use inpatient unit
4 Child and Adolescent Mental Health Crisis Intervention Program
5 Maternal and child services
6 Respiratory therapy services
7 Reception, patient registration, RIH Foundation and retail space
8 Rooftop helipad and underground parking
Unique Installation Challenge Strategy
RIH was definitely a challenge for the construction crews in British Columbia!
Kamloops BC is approximately 250 miles north of Vancouver, BC. From a design point, all the flooring design featured numerous accents and insets to reinforce the natural theme of the river confluence of Kamloops BC. In First Nations language, Kamloops translates as "where the rivers meet". In addition, there were numerous flooring wayfinding inlays to enhance patient and visitor direction. The flooring featured 28 different colorways.
Weather events from the January 2022 Winter were extreme cold (low -30's C) to the summer heat wave (+ 40's C) and many wildfires. Notwithstanding the fall floods from the Atmospheric River of rain flooding British Columbia highways and roads, cutting off the Okanagan – Kamloops interior from the Vancouver lower mainland coast. Needless to say, predictable supply was lost during these times.
Maintaining construction site conditions on the interior construction was tough, with heavy changing environmental demands from product delivery through installation conditions. Since this was a living out of town project, INSTALL installers had to navigate travel to and from the site amidst the above treacherous conditions.
