The completion of the renovations at the health centre have been delayed to around late December, but this is of little consequence to the general public.
Contractors started working on the renovations that will house a primary care clinic that includes two doctor's offices, two examination rooms and a reception area in September. It was planned to be completed by now. However, a few hitches delayed its completion.
“The timing of the renovation – partly because we've been working closely with local contractors, and we've had some flexibility in time and certainly flexibility in contractor time – it's taking a little longer than we had anticipated,” health services administrator Cormac Hikisch said. “But it's still within our reasonable timeline that we set in order get started and open the clinic in February.”
Site coordinator Sally Sullivan added that the public will not be affected by the delay as the rooms will only get used once the health centre gets a doctor, which might happen in February if the one doctor meant for Houston gets his credentials.
Since September, walls have gone up and faucets have gone into the rooms.
“We are more than halfway through,” Sullivan said. “They're making a washroom accessible to the primary care clinic itself. We're estimating six to eight weeks, probably, to give it a little bit of leeway.”
An IT network is also slated for the rooms.
“And concurrently, our next phase is the IT infrastructure, so that's been authorized to proceed, and our Northern Health regional IT team will be on-site in December, in January to put in the computers and IT network.” Hikisch added. “And electronic medical records to allow for the primary care clinic to manage health records, and there will be training associated with that as well.”
Hikisch added that the budget for renovations is $55,000 and almost $80,000 for the IT infrastructure.
The space where the four rooms are going in used to house two mental health offices and a life skills worker.
The mental health and life skills offices have now been relocated towards the eastern end of the health centre.