The Cariboo Memorial Hospital in Williams Lake continues to see activity on its entrances after an extreme cold snap caused water pipes to burst last month.
“We’re repairing the areas in the patient registration and emergency department entrance, and then we’ll be doing the cardiology and daycare, the hallway between them and then the renal area and physician area,” said Lisa Zetes-Zanatta, Interior Health executive director for rural acute and community programs in Thompson Cariboo. “So it’s being done on a priority order based on where patients need to receive care and we’re doing those areas first.”
Zetes-Zanatta said although they do not have an estimate for how long the repairs will take to complete, as quickly and logistically possible is their goal.
The extreme cold had resulted in two different pipe systems being impacted.
“A number of water pipes are being replaced as part of this and we’re also adding extra heat,” Zetes-Zanatta said. “So radiant heating loops in the entranceway around the pipes to ensure that the building management systems respond to extreme weather events which is what this one was, so I think that we’re not only looking at the repair of the damage and a repair of the pipes that were impacted but we’re looking at prevention systems as well.”
“I think we’re doing everything we can to ensure that we can respond,” she added. “That being said in any facility including our homes it is always a risk in extreme weather that there will be impacts but we are looking at what prevention activities we can do to ensure as much as possible that any of these extreme weather events do not impact our ability to provide service.”