Hospital groundbreaking expected this fall.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: Special Report: Construction

After more than a 20-year wait, the Town of Mattawa hopes to begin groundbreaking on a new hospital this fall.

With working drawings and construction documents complete, hospital officials have submitted their formal request to tender to the provincial Ministry of Health and anticipate receiving bids for construction later this summer or by fall.

The community of 2,270, just east of North Bay on the Ottawa River, has been planning for a new hospital since 1980.

Many delays have sidetracked construction in the past, including the SARS epidemic, resulting in more design changes to deal with infection control measures.

"It's a multiple stage process that involves a lot of work and it does take time," says Ted Darby, CEO of the Mattawa General Hospital.

The site will be directly off Highway 17 on Turcotte Park Road in the town's south-west end.

Darby says the Third Street site dates back to the early 1900s. A 1967 fire resulted in temporary buildings constructed of prefabricated wood being added.

"These buildings were built to last no more than 10 years" and now pose "very serious life safety issues," including fire code, accessibility and sprinkler system issues.

Darby says the modular buildings have more than outlived their usefulness.

"It served its purpose 20 years ago."

The proposed new single-storey 44,000-square-foot building will have an emergency room with state-of-the-art infection control measures, a 19-bed inpatient ward, meeting rooms for community organizations, a laboratory and a diagnostic imaging facility.

Darby says in keeping with Mattawa's image as a forest industry town, wood will be incorporated into the design from both structural and aesthetic features with wood studs in the wall frame...