A new acute care facility for Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver has been approved by the B.C. government.

The new acute care building will be a six-storey tower with 108 beds, eight new operating rooms and a medical-device reprocessing department. The plan includes more single rooms for people and expanded surgical services.

The tower will be located on the site of the hospital’s former Activation Building, which was demolished in spring 2017. The estimated cost of the new acute care building is $166 million, with funding provided by government through Vancouver Coastal Health and a fundraising campaign by Lions Gate Hospital Foundation.

“With the approval of the business plan, we are now officially moving forward with the new acute care tower at Lions Gate Hospital, so residents on the North Shore can access state-of-the art, quality public health care,” said Adrian Dix, Minister of Health. “I know community members have advocated for years for this to happen, and our government is proud to take this next big step.”

A new acute care building at Lions Gate Hospital is required to better support the health-care needs of patients living on the North Shore and meet current seismic standards. Having served the community since it opened in 1961, the south acute tower has outdated and obsolete patient-care delivery areas.

A separate $26-million project to replace the hospital’s 1961 power plant on the Lions Gate Hospital site is underway.

In 2015, the Lions Gate Hospital Foundation received a $25-million gift from North Shore resident and local entrepreneur Paul Myers to support the future development of Lions Gate Hospital. In recognition of Myers’ gift, the hospital’s south acute tower was named the Paul Myers Tower in his honour. This name will be transferred to the new acute care facility.