St. Joseph’s General Hospital

In early 2017, North Island Hospital in Comox was nearing completion. The new hospital was set to replace St. Joseph’s General, which had opened in 1913 and was showing its age. In the interim period before North Island was fully ready, both facilities were being used simultaneously; one being phased out and the other phased in.

The Challenge

With only 6 months left before being phased out, the old hospital’s chiller broke down completely. However, cooling was still necessary for summer until the new facility was fully operational. While the North Island building was nearly complete, the operating rooms and certain important machines were still not ready at that point, so those functions were still being handled at St. Joseph’s. A temporary unit from Cool Air was the only option.

The Solution

We shipped a 60-ton chiller to the hospital and flew one of our technicians out for the day. After the unit was lifted to the roof via crane, he worked with Thermotec, the subcontractor, to get it up and running in a matter of hours.

The Result

With our rental chiller in place, St. Joseph’s General was able to continue providing surgeries and other procedures to patients while work finished up on North Island Hospital. Once the new building was ready, all services except the outpatient lab and residential care were transferred over from the old facility, and the chiller was no longer needed to keep day-to-day operations running. During that crucial transitional phase, our Chiller was essential for Comox residents to get the medical care they required.