EDMONTON -- The new Grande Prairie Regional Hospital will open to patients sometime next year, the government says.
Construction of the new facility is finished, officials announced Friday, and Alberta Health Services will begin installing equipment, testing it and training staff.
“We are very excited to see construction completed,” said Stacey Greening, the zone’s senior operating officer of Alberta Health Services.
“The hard work is just beginning as AHS takes possession we now enter our operational commissioning.”
The construction of the nearly 64,000 square-metre project was finished years overdue and came in nearly $100 million over budget with a price tag of $850.3 million.
“When the doors open in a few months, I’m pretty sure the people of northwestern Alberta will all agree it was wroth the wait, because this is a state-of-the-art health care facility,” Premier Jason Kenney commented.
Infrastructure Minister Prasad Panda said his department was still reviewing the construction history, but that Clark Builders, who took over the project, found inefficiencies to finish three months ahead of schedule.
The Alberta government said last year the build would be finished in late 2020.
Just over a year ago, Alberta was ordered to pay nearly $13 million to the new regional hospital’s subcontractors, who said they had lost out when the province ended its contract with Graham Construction the fall before.
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According to the previous NDP government, Graham couldn’t complete the project on time or on budget.
The construction firm said it had warned the government that the hospital’s budget was insufficient for design changes that had been made.
Kenney thanked all subcontractors who had a hand in the new hospital.
“We know that there have been some real challenges for them. I think we’ve worked through almost all of them — there are probably some loose ends and we know there continue to be some challenges from the last nine years – but generally there were a lot of tremendous Alberta subcontractors who worked on this project who got it done even during some really challenging times.”
Panda added his ministry would be developing tools to better track the progress of infrastructure projects, as well as their budget and timelines.
AHS officially takes over the hospital July 1.
When it opens, the hospital will boast 240 patient beds and surgery, emergency and mental health services. It will also host a cancer centre with two radiation treatment areas and a training facility in partnership with the Grande Prairie Regional College.
