The regional Seven Sisters mental health residential facility on the grounds of Mills Memorial Hospital will be torn down but a new one with more beds will replace it, provincial health minister Adrian Dix announced today.
It’ll cost $18 million and the cost is blended in with the $447.5 million budget set for the Mills Memorial Hospital.
Demolition of the current Seven Sisters is needed to make room for the new Mills Memorial and the new one will be located immediately adjacent to the new Mills, Dix said.
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“Tenders will be going out in the next month or two,” Dix says of the new Seven Sisters which will have 25 beds, up from the 20 at the existing facility.
He anticipates a relatively quick bidding and construction start, adding the new facility will be open in the fall of 2020.
The current facility will then be torn down within the time frame of the start of construction of the new Mills.
News that the current Seven Sisters will be demolished was not unexpected — Northern Health earlier this year began looking for contractors qualified to handle its construction.
Dix did acknowledge that the current Seven Sisters is relatively new, opening in 2005 at a cost of $2.5 million.
But he says much has changed since then within the mental health services field and that the new Seven Sisters will have improved patient amenities.
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