The Sunrise Health Region Board has approved an additional investment to correct a potential issue at St. Peter's Hospital and Melville and District Health Centre.
When the combined building "was built onto the St. Paul's Lutheran Home it was built with two large water and sewer lines running through the crawlspace. A utilidor (concrete passage way for utility pipes) was built," explained documents circulated to the regular monthly meeting on the SHR Board.
"This is a risk for both buildings if the pipes were to spring a leak, that utilidor would fill up quickly and then spread into the facility crawlspace moving towards the electrical vault. A notification system is in place to notify the city of any leak. The pipes are aging and one major leak did occur but was repaired in time. A contingency plan is in place."
The City of Melville and the St. Peter's Hospital Board jointly commissioned and funded a study of the utilidor.
The option chosen was to remove the pipes and reroute them around the building perimeter cost shared equally between the City of Melville and St. Peter's Hospital.
The City went to tender and due to the amount of moisture in the ground the received tenders came to $143,300 plus in excess of the original estimate. The City and St. Peter's Hospital board approved the lowest tender and approved an additional $71,650 each so that this project can move forward this fall
The SHR Board was unanimous in supporting the additional spending, to make an overall project cost of $483,000.
