WHEREAS some health authority timelines for facility replacement planning currently average seven years from the time of approval by the Ministry of Health and the regional hospital district, an unacceptable length of time for planning due to inflationary labour and material cost overruns; AND WHEREAS the exaggerated time period also results in redundant costs to maintain existing facilities, and the repeated forecast needs and capacity revisions become a self-consuming process: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Province replace facilities in a timely manner, with the goal of a 4-year length of time from initial approval of hospital replacement to construction where feasible.
Ministry of Health Services Regarding the capital project approval process, health authorities are responsible for identifying the need for capital projects in their areas. These potential projects are prioritized by all health authorities and submitted to the Ministry of Health Services the Ministry. In turn, the Ministry and government prioritizes all capital requests to ensure that limited capital funding is directed to the areas of greatest capital need in the Province. Once a major capital project has been prioritized to proceed, the project business case and procurement strategy is developed. Once these have been approved by government, the project then proceeds through the procurement, design and construction process. Depending upon the complexity of the facility, a major capital project typically takes between three and four years from the initial government approval to proceed through to completion of construction and occupancy. There can be an impression that major capital projects take longer than three to four years to complete. This impression can be created by including the time prior to governments approval to proceed. While a proposed capital project may be ready to proceed at a local level, it is not necessarily the highest capital priority for limited provincial capital funding.