Lakeridge hospital wired up over new power plant

OSHAWA, ONTARIO - The ceremonial switch has been flipped on Lakeridge Health Corporation's new $30 million Central Utilities Plant (CUP).

The three-level plant, located at Lakeridge Health Oshawa, houses two emergency power generators, a state-of-the-art Central Control Room, water purification system and three massive boilers each capable of providing 3,000 kilowatts of power to the Oshawa site, including the new North Wing, Durham Regional Cancer Centre and the southeast tower.

"Today's modern hospitals simply cannot operate without key utilities like power, water and steam," said Derek Beckley, Lakeridge's chief facilities and development officer. "The August 2003 blackout demonstrated that essential hospital and health care services must be able to be self-sufficient in an emergency."

The plant's two diesel generators can run independently for up to a week without refueling, each providing 4,100 volts of power, and the 130,000 litres of storage fuel is enough to drive a mid-sized diesel car around the world 40 times. Ultimately, the 27,800 sq. ft. CUP has enough capacity to power up a town the size of Port Perry, facilities director Neil Clarke said.

"Without this plant we could never open the North Wing. It's a capacity issue," Mr. Clark said.

The North Wing, housing the new Emergency Department, Critical Care Unit, and diagnostic imagining and operating rooms is expected to begin operations in January. The old utilities plant, built in the 1950s, and expanded in 1962 and 1970, was not even able to provide 20 per cent of the redeveloped site's emergency power needs or the heating requirements of the hospital's new and existing space.

The Central Control Room of the CUP, manned 24 hours a day, monitors environmental systems such as air flow, humidity and temperature not only at the Oshawa site, but at Lakeridge Health Whitby, Pinewood Centre and Lakeridge's corporate office as well.

"If you could see the plant the way it was before and contrast it with this, this is amazing," Lakeridge CEO Brian Lemon said. "Of course, this is all background to the patient-care areas. Nobody sees or is aware of this and yet it's so critical to operating a hospital. If this is not right, then the whole hospital doesn't work."

Marion Saunders, chairwoman of Lakeridge's board of trustees, said CUP is one of the most important foundations necessary to begin the commissioning and operation of the new North Wing and Durham Regional Cancer Centre.

"I think it's important for all of us to know we've got the power now to get everything up and going," Ms. Saunders said. "Certainly the concern over blackouts and stuff is now alleviated because we do have the opportunity and the capacity now to operate for a week just on our own without actual fuel delivery.

"One of the things that's important too is to recognize what goes on behind the scenes... the people and the capacity that are working here to make this happen," she said.