June 14, 2007

B.C. Health Care

No money earmarked yet for seismic upgrades to hospitals

KARIN MARK

Correspondent

While British Columbia’s new hospitals are being built to post-disaster seismic standards, no province-wide plan exists to upgrade older buildings in the earthquake zone.

That means, at least in the short term, health care facilities aren’t likely to become a consistent revenue source for B.C. construction companies specializing in seismic upgrades.

B.C.’s high-risk seismic zone covers the western half of the province – and its most populated regions – with Vancouver Island and the coastal communities facing the highest risk.

But while hospitals are considered post-disaster facilities, in recent years the provincial government has taken a hands-off approach to hospital infrastructure, including seismic mitigation.

“Health authorities maintain the responsibility to identify and prioritize capital investments in their own region,” said health ministry spokesperson Sarah Plank.

As a result, the availability of hospital seismic upgrade jobs varies from region to region, depending on local priorities.

B.C.’s largest health region, Fraser Health, plans to spend from $2.5 million to $5 million per year on seismic upgrades. The region, which stretches from Burnaby to Boston Bar, operates 15 hospitals in varying degrees of earthquake-readiness.

Ken Anderson, director of plant services and construction, said the priorities for upgrades are patient-care facilities for which the region has long-term plans.

Recent projects include a $5.5-million upgrade of Royal Columbian Hospital’s health care centre, which makes up about half the site. While Anderson didn’t want to disclose how many projects are still on the list, he did say that by 2012-2015, all the region’s hospitals should be upgraded to a moderate to high seismic standard.

And of course all new projects, such as Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre, meet the latest building code post-disaster seismic standards, he noted.

ROXANNE HOOPER

New B.C. hospitals, like Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre under construction by PCL Constructors Westcoast Inc., will be built to post-disaster seismic standards.

Langley’s Civil Construction Co. Ltd. has completed hospital seismic upgrades for Fraser Health and Vancouver Coastal Health Authority in recent years, although company owner Mike Campbell said the jobs are not as common as they used to be.

“It took on a new urgency after the earthquake in Japan,” he said, referring to Kobe’s 7.2-magnitude earthquake in 1995. “There was a big splurge to hurry the upgrades.”

In the years since, however, those jobs seem to have dwindled.

“It would be nice if they had a dedicated program” for hospital upgrades, Campbell said. “If the money isn’t dedicated, it’s easy to use it for other things.”

In contrast to its approach to hospitals, the province has initiated a $1.5 billion seismic mitigation plan for B.C.’s schools. Andy Mill, a structural engineer with North Vancouver’s David Nairne and Associates who has been involved in that plan, believes some of the design work could assist with hospital seismic upgrades.

“We developed a priorizing system that could be applied to hospitals as well. It would have to be retooled because hospitals have a different performance criteria – they are post-disaster buildings,” said Mill, who chairs the Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C.’s seismic risk task force.

The task force has assisted with developing risk assessment and seismic mitigation guidelines for the school upgrades.

Part of the work is to find cost-effective solutions for upgrading older buildings – a more complicated process than building seismic protection into new construction, Mill said.

“The building code itself is intended for new buildings, so when you apply it to existing buildings you have to use some creativity,” Mill said.

“The truth is, it’s a lot easier to introduce seismic resistance and seismic design in new construction than a retrofit. In new construction you have a lot of opportunities to introduce what you want to introduce.”

The plan, Mill said, is that industry input will help hone the guidelines and create some standardized solutions that could be applied to other buildings. He also sees the value in a parallel process that assesses the seismic risk of not only hospitals, but all critical infrastructure in the province.

“It seems to me the same type of rational approach that is happening in the schools could and should happen with all critical infrastructure in B.C. because at least then we’d have the information,” he said. “It’s a good roadmap.”

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