Movies of War

Premier David Eby recently joined Providence Health Care chief executive officer Fiona Dalton and a gaggle of journalists on a morning tour of the new St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. It was the first look the media, and the premier, have gotten of the new site since construction started in 2021. The hospital is starting to take shape. In some places wires are still hanging out of ceilings and the walls are unfinished. But in other places the space is now recognizable as a health-care facility. Handwashing stations pepper the walls, ceilings have lift tracks rolling across them, and a surprising expanse of windows enhances the feeling of the space while controlling the spread of airborne pathogens. The $2.18-billion facility, which is expected to open next year, will have 548 beds — 115 more than the current Burrard Street location — be nearly double the size of the current hospital and offer all inpatients a private room and bathroom, according to information handouts given on the tour. At the Burrard Street location, only 15 per cent of rooms are private. The front doors of the new hospital open into a large, brightly lit atrium. Photo for The Tyee by Michelle Gamage. Private rooms are one of the many features that will allow the hospital to better handle airborne pathogens, such as the COVID-19 virus. There will also be over 90 negative pressure rooms for patients suspected of being infectious, 15 “outbreak control zones” where up to 10 to 16 inpatient rooms or spaces can be isolated together, and an HVAC system that can quickly isolate a single room to prevent the airborne spread of pathogens. The emergency department will also have more single-patient treatment spaces with walls instead of curtains for privacy and infection control. “There are 2,000 workers on this site putting the finishing touches on this amazing building,” Eby said in a press conference that wrapped up the Feb. 27 tour. A new operating room runs cables, screens and various outlets through mechanical arms that hang from the ceiling, which frees up floor space and lets the room be modified as needed. Photo for The Tyee by Michelle Gamage. The building’s mechanical room is several floors up, which means that in the event of a flood — or a “tsunami,” Eby said — the hospital will still be operational. On-site generators can run the entire hospital for 72 hours in the event of a large earthquake or other large-scale disaster. The building and surrounding roads are also seismically sound, although staff couldn’t say what magnitude of earthquake the site could withstand. The hospital will be a regional transplant centre and have a neonatal intensive care unit with single-patient rooms. St. Paul’s current location on Burrard is home to a nursery model with up to nine families in one room. The new site will be able to meet current and future acute-care demands, Eby said. Addressing staffing shortages Eby was also asked about how the government would staff the new facility given current health-care worker staffing shortages. He said the province is working on bolstering the number of health-care workers through opening the new Simon Fraser University medical school and through international recruitment. Those health-care workers will then be attracted to the new job site where they could enjoy a more “comfortable” work environment. The site will also have automatic systems to improve workplace efficiency and be a hub for the province’s growing life sciences sector, both of which are also attractive to health-care workers, he said. Premier David Eby was in high spirits for the tour, quipping that the new hospital is ‘beautiful, but I hope you never have to see it.’ He also asked if the hospital was zombie-proof. Photo for The Tyee by Michelle Gamage. Pamphlets about the new site say it will have automated robots that deliver supplies, a traditional medicine garden on the main floor and a spiritual garden for people of all faiths. RELATED STORIES More Overdose Prevention Sites Likely Coming to Hospitals Across BC The building will also be Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, certified. It has been built five metres above the predicted year 2100 sea level rise, and the mechanical air cooling systems are designed to withstand and accommodate predicted year 2080 temperatures. The new St. Paul’s may not get an overdose prevention site More Overdose Prevention Sites Likely Coming to Hospitals Across BC read more St. Paul’s opened B.C.’s first hospital-based overdose prevention site in 2018. In June 2025 the Ministry of Health said more hospitals should open similar sites because “the impact of having on-site overdose prevention services at St. Paul’s Hospital has been profound,” and “the positive impacts cannot be overstated.” However, it’s uncertain whether the new St. Paul’s will have an overdose prevention site, Providence’s Dalton told The Tyee. Eby said the new hospital location will care for patients who use drugs using the Road to Recovery program, where “if they show up with an overdose or an emergency they go directly into the recovery program.” Not all people who use drugs have a substance use disorder; some are casual or infrequent users who may nonetheless suffer an overdose due to the toxicity of the illicit drug supply. Others who do have substance use disorders and who need hospital care may not want to stop using drugs, or be ready to stop using drugs, and they may not want to go into treatment and recovery programs. Read more: Health, Labour + Industry