Ksyen Regional Hospital - Terrace, BC

After years of planning and anticipation, construction of the new Mills Memorial Hospital replacement project and the new Seven Sisters facility is underway. Today, we celebrated virtually - on Zoom - the start of construction with the Ministry of Health.

Some staff gathered in the cafeteria at the current Mills Memorial Hospital to celebrate the long-awaited news and watch the Zoom celebration together. We ordered special cupcakes and delivered them to all Northern Health staff in Terrace.

The new Mills Memorial Hospital will be a significant investment in the community and region. At $622.6 million, it represents the largest capital investment in Northern Health’s history.

Read: BC Gov News Release | Construction starts on new Mills Memorial Hospital

Watch: Construction start celebration video with Minister of Health

Water trucks and sprinklers are being used to help with the extreme heat and dust as the ground work preparations continue ahead of the construction of the new MMH hospital in Terrace!

Recognizing the current extreme heat concerns in the Northwest and the rest of the province, Northern Health and the contractor working on the Mills Memorial Hospital site are working on solutions to manage the heat and dust-related issues.

A water truck is on site, and sprays the roads when trucks are hauling as often as possible. Sprinklers are also being installed on site, some of which are spraying trucks down before they go onto the road. (see photo)

Last week the contractor began installing a permanent chain link fence along the west side of the site. Once the fence is in place, debris netting will be added to cover the length and height of the fence. This netting should help prevent dust and debris from blowing into yards.

We understand that construction can be inconvenient for nearby residents. We are doing what we can to listen to concerns and minimize the impacts where possible.

The Mills Memorial Hospital Replacement Project includes building a new Seven Sisters mental health residence facility and a new, state-of-the-art hospital more than twice the size of the current one. The project will allow the hospital to provide new and expanded services not currently available, and is an important investment for future generations in Terrace and communities throughout Northwest BC.

Here's Master Sweeper heading out from the Mills Memorial Hospital site on one of its regular street cleaning sessions. As trucks have been hauling soil off the site over the past three weeks, to prepare the site for construction, PCL Constructors Westcoast Inc., has hired Master Sweeper to regularly clean the streets around the hospital and along the haul routes.

The Terrace Pediatric Clinic has temporarily moved from the Sleeping Beauty Pediatric Clinic to the third floor of the Park Avenue Medical Clinic.

As construction of a new, state-of-the-art facility progresses, the Sleeping Beauty Medical Clinic, located behind Mills Memorial Hospital, will need to be demolished to make way for the new hospital.

In the meantime, PCL Constructors Westcoast Inc, the contractor set to build the new hospital, will use Sleeping Beauty as a temporary on-site, office location.

The new permanent location for the Terrace Pediatric Clinic will not be on the hospital grounds. However, it will be adjacent to the property in a newly leased space in the Keith Avenue Mall. The Park Avenue clinic location is only temporary while the Keith Avenue space is being designed and renovated for the Terrace Pediatric Clinic.

The Terrace Pediatric Clinic provides primary care services for children, from birth to their seventeenth birthday. The Clinic offers comprehensive, up-to-date, quality care, for a variety of medical, developmental, and mental health problems. It is a consultative service based on a referral from a family physician.

Acute care services for children ¬– for example, emergency treatment and surgeries ¬– will continue to be offered at the hospital.

While there may be some changes to how patients access services throughout the construction of a new hospital, Northern Health is planning ahead and aims to keep all services as accessible as possible to patients during this time.

Don't be alarmed if you feel some shaking around 3pm tomorrow, June 22. Vibration testing is happening on the Mills Memorial hospital site to ensure future construction won't impact community, patient and staff safety. Testing is happening during the day to make sure the hospital can safely operate at the same time as construction.

A chain link fence will start going up this week along the west side of the Mills Memorial Hospital site. This fence will be permanent fixture as it is part of the final plans of the new hospital designs, which are ongoing.

Throughout construction, debris netting will be strung along the entire length and height of the fence, to help prevent dust and debris from entering adjacent neighbour yards. The netting will also provide more privacy for those neighbours.

Once the new hospital is built, landscaping plans call for vegetation to be planted along the west side of the property. At the request of neighbours, privacy slats may also be installed in the fence.

Since construction activity began on the Mills Memorial hospital site, Northern Health has been in touch with many surrounding neighbours, informing them of plans and discussing concerns about the impacts of construction. In addition to numerous emails and phone calls, we've hosted a virtual neighbourhood meeting, and continue to deliver notices to mailboxes, and post updates on this Lets Talk site and in the Northern Health Terrace/Kitimat Facebook group.

Some impacts from construction are unfortunately inevitable. Northern Health and the contractor, PCL Constructors Westcoast Inc, are working hard to listen to neighbours’ concerns and minimize these impacts. Here's a few examples of what's being done to address concerns, minimize impacts and maximize safety.

• Glare shields on parking lot lights
• Water truck on site to spray down dust, on site and on roads
• Street sweeper cleaning the streets
• Speed limit signs
• ongoing noise and vibration monitoring
• Regular reminders to truck drivers and subcontractors to be mindful of neighbours

A new hospital will ultimately benefit the entire community and region. As work continues, Northern Health looks forward to ongoing conversations with neighbours, community members, Indigenous groups and local and regional stakeholders about this exciting project.

Lots of exciting preparation work has been happening on the Mills Memorial Hospital site in anticipation of the construction of a new hospital.

Over the last few weeks, the majority of the trees have been cleared from the site. Security fences have gone up around the perimeter and machines have been busy clearing the soil of stumps and roots.

Check out how different the site looks from just 10 days ago.

The trees on the northeast corner of the Mills Memorial Hospital site, the corner of Tetrault Street and Keith Avenue, will be cleared today and tomorrow, June 10 and 11.

Most trees on the site have already been cleared to prepare for the construction of a new hospital, but this patch, behind the Seven Sisters facility, was left to protect a raven who had nested there.

A sweep this morning by Triton Environmental Consultants, however, said the area is now "inactive", and that "no other bird nests or nesting behaviour were observed during the survey."

One woodpecker nest remains on the site, in the Northeast corner, in a patch of trees that will also need to be cleared once the nest is inactive.

A Northern Flicker also has a nest in a row of trees between Tetrault Street and the Mills Memorial hospital parking lot.

Work continues in the exciting anticipation of the construction of a new hospital starting soon.