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  • Project Update: February site tour

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    It's a new year, and that means there are exciting updates at the Stuart Lake Hospital. Construction has progressed over the winter months, and the exterior is nearly finished! Development activities are now shifting primarily to interior work.


    Northern Health President and CEO Ciro Panessa was in Fort St. James to visit the future hospital and check out the newly-mounted exterior cladding.

    Pictured: Sebastian Mountjoy (Project Manager), Andre Wakkary (Sr. Project Coordinator), Ciro Panessa (CEO Northern Health), Drew Woods (Sr. Project Manager), Nathan Shields (Site Superintendent) show off the almost-finished exterior of the new hospital.


    This fall, the team will start installing equipment and getting internal systems ready to go for opening in early 2025. The new building will bring all health services under one roof, providing:

    • 27 beds: 18 community care and 9 acute care
    • An emergency department with 2 treatment rooms, a trauma bay, and a covered ambulance bay
    • Primary care
    • Lab and diagnostic imaging
    • In-house spiritual and gathering spaces
    • Larger space for palliative care
    • Culturally and medicinally significant landscaping with outdoor spaces and gardens

    Pictured: Sebastian Mountjoy (Project Manager), Andre Wakkary (Sr. Project Coordinator), Ciro Panessa (CEO Northern Health), Drew Woods (Sr. Project Manager), Nathan Shields (Site Superintendent) visit the site of the new Stuart Lake Hospital.



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  • Helipad Closed for Construction

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    On May 1, 2022, the Stuart Lake Hospital helipad will be closed while the new hospital is built. This is because construction can’t safely take place with the helipad in operation. So, the helipad at the hospital will be decommissioned for the duration, and the helipad at the airport will be used for helicopter landings and patient transport during this time. The airport is 7.8km, roughly 9 minutes, from the hospital.

    The hospital helipad will reopen once construction finishes. And even better, safety upgrades to the helipad will take place during construction. These upgrades will include fencing, signage, re-location of the wind-sock, painting, and new spotlights.

    If you're wondering whether involving ambulances in transporting folks to the helipad is an extra step, you'll be interested to know that whether the helipad is at the airport or on the hospital site, BC Ambulance Services are involved in transporting the patient to the aircraft.

    You might also be interested to know that the helipad at the airport is used three times more often to move patients to and from the Stuart Lake Hospital than the helipad at the hospital. BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS) determines which of the two helipads to use depending on circumstances, availability of ambulance cars, and weather conditions. During the hospital construction and the hospital helipad closure, BCEHS staff won't find it procedurally unusual to use the airport helipad.

    We appreciate your patience and understanding as we take this necessary step to allow for the new, much needed, Stuart Lake Hospital to be built. If you have any questions, please reach out! You can contact us at LetsTalkSLH@northernhealth.ca.


  • Signed! And Getting Set to Start

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    We are excited to announce that the Design-Build Agreement has been signed with the Stuart Lake Hospital Replacement Project’s preferred proponent, Graham Design Builders LP, which means that construction can begin!

    “People in Fort St. James and the surrounding communities will soon see shovels go in the ground for a state-of-the-art hospital, which is very exciting,” said Adrian Dix, Minister of Health. “Local residents have been waiting for years to see their hospital replaced and our government took action to make it happen.” Read the full announcement here.

    The timeline hasn't changed, so construction is expected to begin at the end of May, 2022, and the new hospital should be ready for patients in 2025.

    We're going to keep you posted along the way! For Stuart Lake Hospital news, follow along here at Let’s Talk Stuart Lake Hospital. And send questions to LetsTalkSLH@northernhealth.ca. We'll be happy to answer them.

  • Stuart Lake Hospital Showcased in Recruitment Video

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    Early in the morning on February 24, 2022, the 6ix Sigma film crew arrived at the Stuart Lake Hospital ready to meet the staff and start filming. The photographer roamed the hospital snapping pictures and getting to know hospital staff in the lab, radiology, and throughout the hospital, while the film crew followed Tiwi Mukubvu as she went about her day at work.

    Tiwi moved from Toronto to Fort St James as a new grad. Her enjoyment of her chosen home is clear. In the video she is seen at work with her colleagues at Stuart Lake hospital, at Murray Ridge Ski Hill, where her friend and fellow nurse Sarah Grill coaches her down the slopes, and as she and her daughter stroll along the frozen shore of Stone’s Bay on Stuart Lake, or Nakal Bun in Dakelh, where food gathering and recreation have been mainstays of humans for thousands of years.

    6ix Sigma brings her story as a second generation nurse and a Northern BC transplant to life, showcasing the care with which she and her colleagues tend to their patients. “We all work together,” Tiwi says. “It’s all hands on deck – someone is the right hand and someone is the left hand and we just work well together.”

    Tiwi Mukubvu at workNurses on skis at Murray Ridge



    Tiwi’s passion for her job and the community are a highlight of the video. Having learned to embrace the winter, she has no regrets about moving to Fort St James. The smile we see on her face as she as she and her daughter ramble the snowy shore doesn’t waiver. The video captures the winter beauty of Fort St James and showcases the outdoor opportunities adventure-seekers and nature-lovers enjoy when they’re off work.

    Tiwi is one individual among many who have chosen to move to Fort St James for work, and her hunch about the Stuart Lake Hospital was right: she’s found friends among her colleagues who all share her anticipation for the new hospital. “All our staff here are excited about it,” she says, “I think nothing beats working in a new facility.”

    Currently, Stuart Lake Hospital has 13 beds. The new hospital will more than double that number, and with an increase to the services offered, more staff are needed to fill nursing, physician, lab, and diagnostic imaging positions.

    6ix Sigma’s work, and the enthusiastic participation of the hospital staff in its creation, have resulted in a captivating video that prospective healthcare workers won’t be able to resist – the camaraderie and support of staff for one another and their commitment to their hospital and its patients are clearly on display.

    Adding to the puzzle library in long term care

    Stay tuned to Let’s Talk to view the video on its release.



  • Flag and Fall While the Ground is Frozen

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    Stuart Lake, looking east towards
    Fort St James

    Starting next week, tree clearing begins on the land where the Stuart Lake Hospital replacement will stand. This is an exciting step for the Stuart Lake Hospital project that brings us closer to a new, modern hospital for the people in the Fort St. James area.

    Tree clearing must take place while the ground is still hard. Luckily, we have very hard ground here in February. Taba, a locally owned and operated company, has been contracted for site preparation. Tree flagging is their first step, which begins this weekend, and equipment will arrive onsite early next week. Falling and clearing should start soon after that.

    We’ve had lots going on behind the scenes, but until now we haven’t had boots-on-the-ground news to offer. We’re in the procurement phase of the process with design development ongoing, which means we’ll be reaching out to the community for input and to connect about the project.

    Stay tuned - we’ll have more information to share soon!



  • Next step taken for new Stuart Lake Hospital

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    People in Fort St. James and the surrounding area are one step closer to a modern hospital as a preferred proponent has been selected for the design phase.

    "Our government is moving forward to deliver a new hospital in Fort St. James with the selection of a preferred proponent and signing of the design-early works agreement," said Adrian Dix, Minister of Health. ͞This announcement means we are closer to seeing what the hospital will look like and getting shovels in the ground."

    Northern Health requested and received proposals from three shortlisted proponents for this stage of the procurement process, the design-early works agreement (DEWA). Those teams were Clark Builders, Graham Design Builders LP and SBW Wright Construction JV.

    As a result of the evaluation process, in co-ordination with Northern Health and Infrastructure BC, Graham Design Builders LP was selected as the successful proponent.

    The new hospital is expected to be three times larger in building size than the current facility with 27 beds, including 18 long-term care beds. There will be an emergency department with two treatment rooms, a trauma bay and ambulance bay. A laboratory and diagnostic imaging will be part of the new facility.

    The hospital will include a primary care centre to consolidate services offered in Fort St. James at one location, reducing the distance patients and staff need to go for medical appointments, community health services, diagnostic imaging and lab services.

    For more information, see the full media release.

  • Stuart Lake Hospital Replacement project on track

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    The Stuart Lake Hospital Replacement project continues to remain on track in terms of scope, schedule budget and quality.

    Northern Health has requested and received proposals from three shortlisted proponent teams. Their responses are in regards to the first stage of the procurement for a Design Early Works Agreement (DEWA). The responses are currently being evaluated through an established process in coordination with Northern Health and Infrastructure BC. Evaluations will continue through the beginning of December into early 2021.

    The current proposal phase evaluates the proponent proposals for design using the DEWA contract. Once the DEWA is signed, the successful Design Builder will pursue getting a Design Build Contract to provide Northern Health with the design and construction of the replacement facility in Stuart Lake. We are expecting to finalize the DEWA contract in January.

  • RFQ closed: 5 responses & next steps

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    On June 18, 2020, the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for the Stuart Lake Hospital Redevelopment Project closed and Northern Health received five responses from design-builder teams. Northern Health, with Partnerships BC, completed their evaluation and recommended a shortlist of three teams to proceed to the next stage of the process.

    The next step in this process will be the release of the Request for Proposals (RFP) for the project to the three proponents shortlisted in the RFQ, this was issued on August 4th, 2020. This RFP process is open only to the top three companies that were shortlisted through the initial RFQ process. They are Clark Builders Design-Builder, Graham Design Builders LP, and The Design-Builder joint venture (JV) partnership between Smith Bros. and Wilson (BC) Ltd. (SBW) and 1229917 BC Ltd., a corporation wholly owned by Wright Construction Western Inc. (Wright).

    The first RFP closes in October 2020, and Northern Health, with their consulting team, will evaluate the proposals to select one team to execute a Design Early Works Agreement and then proceed to the next stage, the second RFP for the construction.

    A request for Qualifications (RFQ) is a process that allows organizations to consider proposals based on the experience and qualifications of firms interested in submission (a straight tender considers only price). A scoring matrix is included in this process, so that bidders understand what the organization is looking for. This assists in eliminating potential issues, including the avoidance of unqualified bidders submitting the lowest bid. An RFQ also encourages bidders who might otherwise not submit if the field of competition appears too large and the chances of bid success are presumed low. Putting together an accurate yet competitive tender price is a lot of work. If there is a higher likelihood that an unqualified bidder could put in a low bid then this discourages qualified and appropriate bidders from submitting.

    Bidders passing the RFQ (usually up to three) are then able to respond to the next step of the procurement (a Tender or Request for Proposals, RFP) which then results in a Construction Contract (this type of contract requires that the contractor agree to be responsible for job execution at a set price).

  • It's Official!

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    The replacement of Stuart Lake Hospital in Fort St. James was announced by BC Premier John Horgan on January 18, 2020. Northern Health is now moving quickly to move the project forward and start the work of procurement, and ultimately construction.




  • New hospital approved for Fort St. James

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    Better care is on the way for people in Fort St. James and the surrounding region. The Stuart Lake Hospital replacement project has received the official green light, with government approval of the concept plan.

    “It’s a go! This new hospital has been needed for a long time, and is why Premier John Horgan and I made it a key priority in our efforts to improve health care throughout northern B.C.,” said Adrian Dix, Minister of Health. “The new hospital will bring better acute, primary and community care for people living in Fort St. James, local First Nations and the surrounding area. For a growing senior population in the region and for the economy as a whole, it is an essential public service.