Health officers too close together in IH building
Public health officers battling the COVID19 pandemic were working too close to one another in a downtown Kelowna office building.
Workers were cramped inside a section of the Community Health and Services Centre on Doyle Avenue, and were not able to maintain a two-metre separation.
As a result, $300,000 must be spent to convert vacant areas on the building’s fifth floor for extra space for public health officers so they have greater privacy when contacting people who might have COVID-19.
The project is one of three additional Interior Health capital undertakings, totalling more than $3.6 million, that will require financial support from taxpayers across greater Kelowna.
The projects were not foreseen when IH’s 2020-21 capital building program was drawn up in December 2019. The others are a plan to replace the aging 221-bed Cottonwoods long-term care home on Ethel Street, and creation of an urgent and primary care centre in West Kelowna.
“We apologize for this ask outside of the normal funding request timelines,” Sylvia Weir, chief financial officer for IH, writes in a letter to the Central Okanagan regional district board.
The group — made up of Kelowna-area politicians — also doubles as the local hospital board.
The provincial government pays 60 per cent of the capital cost of new health-care facilities, but local taxpayers through regional districts provide the balance.
Last December, the regional board approved its financial participation in $9.9 million worth of capital health-care projects across the Central Okanagan. The cost for an average homeowner was about $188, in addition to municipal, regional, school, and other taxes.
Regional directors will consider the additional funding request of $3.6 million, and how to pay for it, at a Monday meeting.
The Interior Health building on Doyle has 2,600 square feet of space that has remained vacant since construction finished in 2016. It will be used to relieve the “tremendous pressure” being put on public health workers as a result of the pandemic, Weir says.
“Public health was located in a very congested workspace that could not meet engineering protocols related to COVID-19. The new area will accommodate for these current deficiencies in meeting physical distancing,” Weir says.
“Medical health officers are on all day calls and require privacy and uninterrupted spaces,” Weir says.
Total cost of the renovations is put at $300,000, with local taxpayers providing $120,000.
This summer, Health Minister Adrian Dix announced West Kelowna would become the 19th community in B.C. to get an urgent and primary care centre. Of the $3.1 million capital cost, local taxpayers will provide $1.2 million.
Development of a business plan replace Cottonwoods, where there are four people to most rooms, will cost $250,000, with local taxpayers providing $100,000.