A new ICU in Nanaimo will begin admitting patients later this month, replacing an aging unit once considered one of Canada’s worst ICUs.
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Health Secretary Adrian Dix says the new 12-bed ward at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital will open to patients on June 28.
The unit will replace what Dix described as an outdated and undersized ICU, a 10-bed facility that dates back to 1970.
He says the new $41.6 million unit will include larger single patient rooms, overhead patient lifts and a family consultation room.
Sheila Malcolmson, Nanaimo MLA and Secretary of State for Mental Health and Addiction, says the old intensive care unit was reported as one of the “most dangerous” in Canada in 2013 and the new unit is badly needed in the central city of Vancouver Island.
An external review examining three of Island Health’s ICUs found that the physical condition of the Nanaimo ward was “by far the worst ICU that we have seen in Canada.”
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