By Angela Brown

Prairie North addresses flooding impact at Lloydminster hospital

Jul 4, 2017 | 2:00 PM

The Prairie North Health Region is assessing repair work at the Lloydminster hospital following flooding last month.

“On June 9 there was what I would consider to be once in a century downpour of rain,” Prairie North Health Region chief executive officer David Fan said. “I think it was estimated that there were three to five inches of rain in a short period of time – about 45 minutes.” 

Prairie North finance and operations vice-president Derek Miller discussed the flooding impact to the hospital, which services a large georgraphical area, at the Prairie North Health Region board meeting in North Battleford on June 28. 

Following the meeting Fan said currently crews are working to replace the duct system.

“We never had flooding issues at the Lloydminster hospital but this time we did,” he said. “There was a severe flooding issue for us. The basement wall flooded, our HVAC, which is a heating, ventilation, air conditioning system, was flooded out. That essentially shuts down our supply of fresh air into the building, our air conditioner unit. Basically, it triggers a whole series of responses and remediation that are still going on.”

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“To this point, I think a lot of work has been put in place by our staff, to bring the HVAC system back online,” Fan added.

He said air quality has been proven to be good at the hospital and there is no mold present. 

“I think those are all safety issues that we need to put it out there to make sure that the general public are well reassured,” Fan said.

Prairie North still needs to replace its underground duct work that was damaged from the flood. 

“We discovered that the flooding water damage is significant,” Fan said. “So I think the end result is that we need to find an alternate solution to it. Instead of using the underground ducts that are now compromised, we’re looking for a more permanent solution.”

Over the summer, Prairie North will redevelop a new duct system above ground.

“That is very much in the works. It will likely come at a significant cost to us and will likely take the next two or three months to get it sorted out,” the CEO said.

It took about two weeks for crews to pump out water following the flooding, as well as clean and disinfect the area impacted, and have remediation work completed.

“I think our staff responded to the crisis very well,” Fan said. “Everybody rallied to make sure that the welfare of our patients is top of mind, with as little inconvenience to our patients as possible.”

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW