Division leaders Nanaimo Clippers
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too much for Island opponents. PAGE 30
a y u b y h W n o s i tt a Jim P ? i a d n u y H bsite e W r u O t i Vis
www.nanaimobulletin.com
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2016
VOL. 27, NO. 80
Hospital slated for upgrade to power supply
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INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDED for work to begin on new 12-bed intensive care unit. BY TAMARA CUNNINGHAM THE NEWS BULLETIN
NICHOLAS PESCOD/THE NEWS BULLETIN
New recruits
Emeka Udeagha, a two-year member with the Young Professionals of Nanaimo, donates blood at Beban Park social centre Thursday. The YPN recruited 20 of its members to donate blood to the Canadian Blood Services. It’s the first time the YPN has participated in such an event.
Two separate fires displace homeowners, businesses BY CHRIS BUSH THE NEWS BULLETIN
Firefighters tackled two blazes on the weekend that damaged a downtown office building and a home in the city’s south end. Emergency crews responded shortly after 9 p.m. Saturday to a commercial building at 321 Wallace St. for a fire on the top floor of the three-storey building. The fire was knocked down quickly and contained to one business
suite, but had extended into the attic space above, where Capt. Ennis Mond, Nanaimo Fire Rescue chief fire prevention officer, said much of the building’s wiring and air conditioning ducting is located. “There’s a three-and-ahalf-foot void space where all the A/C ducting runs, where all the wiring runs, and there’s quite a bit of damage up there,” Mond said. All occupants had evacuated from a business operating on the first floor and
no one was injured. The investigation into the cause of the fire was underway Monday. The entire building will remain closed until the investigation is finished and it can be determined which businesses can reopen. The next day, a fire in a home on 32 Gillespie St. gutted its main floor. Fire crews responded to that fire shortly before 7 p.m. Sunday, arriving to find heavy flames erupting from the front of the house. “Fire ran through, pretty
well, the main floor of the house,” Mond said. Both of the home’s occupants had evacuated when firefighters arrived, but their dog died in the fire and one occupant had to be treated by ambulance crews for smoke inhalation. The residents, who Mond said had homeowners’ insurance, will be displaced until the house is repaired. Investigations into both fires are expected to be completed early this week. photos@nanaimobulletin.com
A new $12-million energy building is needed to fuel future development at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, including construction of a new intensive care unit, according to Island Health. With its power use at the maximum, the hospital can’t expand its footprint until it turns the switch on a new energy centre. The health authority has applied to the City of Nanaimo for a development permit for a new energy centre that will have three generators and an electrical distribution centre. The project is planned to get underway this summer and will take approximately two years to complete and commission, said Island Health spokeswoman Val Wilson, in an e-mail. While the hospital still has electrical energy capacity for approved renovations, like the installation of two CT scanners, Wilson said the new energy centre will provide additional power to the building and allow for future development of the hospital campus. Island Health recently approved planning for a new 12-bed intensive care unit for the hospital’s sickest patients, which is slated to go in a parking lot between the emergency and the renal and obstetrics wings. It’s been on the radar since it was highlighted in an Island-wide review of intensive care services a couple of years ago, but the new build is an ‘add on’ that can’t go ahead without the electrical infrastructure, according to Dr. Drew Digney, executive medical director for the central Island. See ‘NEW POWER’ /3