Interior Health’s CEO says the new patient care tower at Royal Inland Hospital is on schedule, with construction now well underway.

Susan Brown points out EllisDon began work at the site about two months ago.

“Things are moving forward and its a really exciting time for the site. All the clinical teams have been engaged in the planning and continue to be, and the site is no stranger to capital planning so I’m sure they will do the commissioning at this time with ease, as they have with other major builds.”

Brown acknowledged a “major displacement” of parking at the hospital as a result of construction, and says it’s not easy but says that it is part of the process.

She adds there’s nothing at this point to say the project is ahead of schedule, when asked by NL News if it might be due to mild weather in the fall when the project got started.

“I assume that the contractor, of course the proponent who got awarded this, has worked in our area before and is very familiar with our weather patterns. So I don’t know if that allows them to creep forward in a piece because of that.”

The near-$400 million project new patient tower is expected to be ready to open early in 2022.