It’s great to have been part of the construction team at Victoria’s newest medical facility, Eagle Creek Village Surgical Centre in View Royal. The facility is right next to Victoria General Hospital and is run by a Calgary company called Surgical Centres. Here’s their ‘About Us’ blurb from their website:

Our goal is to give you timely access to world-class surgeons who are using advanced technology. And as Canada’s largest and longest-serving broad-based private surgery company, we can do that. Since 1988, we’ve helped more than a quarter million people get access to the surgery and diagnostics they need; from spine surgery, orthopedic surgery, and endoscopy…to plastic surgery, corneal transplant, carpal tunnel surgery and more. Our staff and surgeons continually receive the highest ratings from our client surveys, something we pride ourselves on.

We work with organizations like the Workers’ Compensation Board, Regional Health Authorities, Department of National Defense and other third-party payers like your insurance company.

They’re going to start off by doing day procedures and endoscopies and then branch out to more complex procedures involving overnight stays (they have four overnight rooms). My friend DR who works at WCB and looks after injured workers is looking forward to reduced wait-times to treat folks who’ve been involved in workplace accidents.

Construction of the Surgical Centre

It was a challenging and rewarding project. Because it was such a fast paced project, a coworker, GM, from my days with Bayside Mechanical enlisted my help. GM now heads the Vancouver Island division of PML, Professional Mechanical and they had won the contract to install the mechanical scope of work, which includes plumbing, air conditioning, sheet metal, medical gas, fire protection sprinklers, insulation, and controls. Speaking of fast paced, did you know that they ripped open the roof in a functioning office building in the middle of winter to upgrade the structure so that it would support all the additional rooftop mechanical equipment? And for those of you in nicer climes, yes it snows and rains here.

I was holed up there in a construction shack from October to May. Actually, the office was rather nice. It had a waterview of the Gorge, for one. I didn’t know you could see the water from there. That will be nice for the doctors and patients. The views of the woods and farmland on the north side are also spectacular.

Lots of eye opening experiences. One of them was seeing the 275 ton mobile crane, (largest on the island) in action. This thing is a monster with a jib that goes up to heaven! Expensive too, all-in the rental was in excess of $2000/per working hour (that includes the 6 hours to assemble and disassemble). Though I’ve project managed care facilities before, this was my first experience with a full hospital. There’s sterilizers, washers, ultrasonic cavitators, macerators, RO water, filters: you name it! Thanks especially to GM, JB, MS, and KS for their help and tips. The Mechanical Contractor’s Association of BC had a writeup of the project in their Spring 2017 edition, thought I’d share this with all the assiduous readers out there. Until next time, I’m Edwin Wong and I’m doing Melpomene’s work in a roundabout way.