The first in a series of open houses was held last night to receive public input on major renovations to the Flin Flon General Hospital emergency room slated to begin in the spring of 2015 with completion anticipated in late 2017 at a cost of 22 million dollars.

Northern Health Region CEO Helga Bryant says they have received a site feasibility study highlighting some of their plans including removing the ramp because they don’t need or want the ramp.  She says they want to maintain the use of the elevator just on the other side of the ramp because it’s relatively new and they also wanted as the main thing to separate the one entrance into three entrances so the great feature of the plan is that they have separated the public entrance from the ambulance drop off and from just the walk in emergency room traffic.

Bryant says there is a community commitment of 2.2 million dollars which is a policy of Manitoba Health. She says the board will start looking at strategies to raise the money and that could include a donor program and in kind contributions.