When you go for your appointment at the hospital Thursday, be careful entering the parking lot – the direction of traffic will have changed.
Starting tomorrow morning, weather permitting, traffic flow through the Campbell River Hospital main entrance parking lots will switch from a clockwise direction to a counter-clockwise direction. This means motorists will enter through the west parking lot and exit through the east parking lot, the opposite of the current practice. Traffic control people will be on hand to assist with this change.
The parking lots will be closed today to prepare for the change, except for the east parking lot (the one closest to the entrance) which will remain open for handicapped parking and drop-off traffic only.
The traffic slow change is necessary to accommodate a new ambulance access route running around the Sunshine Wellness Centre to the Emergency department entrance.
“This is going to be the entrance and exit for the ambulance while we’re constructing the new building,” Tom Sparrow, Chief Project Officer for the North Island Hospitals Project, explained.
The new temporary ambulance access route is required because construction of the new hospital next year will block the present ambulance route to and from the present emergency entrance. The new ambulance route is expected to open later this month.
Project officials are reminding the public that two new parking lots are now open, offering 140 parking stalls, off 2nd Avenue just west of Yucalta Lodge, near the Dogwood intersection.