Broken elevators in the Clinical Services Building at Royal Inland Hospital have led to major changes to access and parking at the Columbia Street medical facility — changes that are expected to remain in place until the end of the month.
Interior Health said an unexpected equipment failure has placed elevators out of commission, leaving visitors accessing the Clinical Services Building on Columbia Street to face five flights of stairs. As a result, the health authority is advising visitors who have difficulty climbing stairs to plan ahead and consider alternate methods of access.
“Additional staff and volunteers will be on hand to help patients and visitors safely reach their destination,” Interior Health said in a statement. “However, delays should be anticipated and patients and visitors are asked to plan accordingly.”
The elevator outages have also prompted Interior Health to make changes to parking at the hospital, with patient and visitor parking being temporarily relocated to the upper staff parkade above RIH and staff parking being moved to the parkade in the Clinical Services Building.
There will be no parking in the Clinical Services Building parkade for users of the Urgent Primary Care and Learning Centre, with those users needing to find off-site parking or arrange to be dropped off at the centre.
The first four floors of the Clinical Services Building are the parkade, with health services beginning on Level 1 (fifth floor).
Signage will be in place and, during peak hours, traffic controllers will be on site, while parking fees will be waived until the elevators are back in service.
IH said transit users who are dropped on Columbia Street and require assistance need to plan ahead accordingly.
