KENTVILLE, N.S. — Progress on Kentville’s new hospice is marching along.
Although things are slightly behind schedule, Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA) spokesperson Fern Brydon said there is a great deal of optimism that the facility will be complete by the end-of-year target.
“There are a lot of people trying to make sure we’ve got this finished by the end of the year,” said Brydon, NSHA’s manager of hospice and palliative care in the Annapolis Valley. “There were some initial delays because of the weather last year, but the intent from then until now, and beyond, is to try and catch up.”
So far, things are taking shape on the inside and outside of the facility.
“They’ve basically framed up the building, and with that you can enter and kind of see an open area, our dining room and kitchen,” Brydon said, describing how the interior looks at this stage of construction. “To the right, you can see the clinical place.”
The entirety of the building is designed to be in the shape of a bird, with the ‘wings’ containing patient rooms.
In the last few weeks, Brydon said the windows have been installed. The mechanical and electrical parts of the building have been roughed-in as well.
The construction is the subject of extensive consultation between the NSHA, Valley Hospice Foundation and contractors hired to build the new facility.
INTERNAL WORK
Brydon said much of the recent work on the exterior has been going on simultaneously with plans and work on the interior to make sure things are ready to get going once the building is complete.
In the coming weeks, Brydon said there may be less overt, external evidence of progress on the hospice.
“For those who are watching in the next few weeks, they may not see activity they’ve been used to seeing in the past few months,” Brydon said.
A lot of the work that remains to be done will take place within the building.
That was by design. It was the aim of the contractors to get most of the exterior work done before the end of the summer.
“I know there are divisions for walls up, but I’m not yet sure if they have any gyprock up, or that kind of thing," Brydon said, adding that she believes putting up internal walls is going to be the next step.”
While the physical structure is in place, a lot of the internal processes and features are about to be the focus of the construction work.
“The Valley Hospice Foundation is very much involved in this process and has done a lot of decision making about the furniture, etc.,” Brydon said.
As for a move-in date, the intention is to have the hospice staffed and in operation by 2020.
