Cost refresh underway of renal, oncology expansion at Cranbrok hospital
Published 9:15 am Monday, December 15, 2025
Updated costs for the renal and oncology expansion at the East Kootenay Regional Hospital are still in the works, as the province and Interior Health work to add a third floor into the project’s scope.
The initial proposal only included two floors — one for renal and one for oncology — however, the Kootenay East Regional Hospital District successfully lobbied the province to provisionally include a third floor in order to alleviate capacity pressures on other areas of the hospital.
According to an update from Interior Health during a board meeting on Dec. 12, finalized costs and funding requests to the KERHD board is expected early next year, while the business plan is expected to be completed and sent to the Ministry of Infrastructure by Spring 2026.
While the third floor proposal has yet to be formally approved by the province, preliminary uses identified by Interior Health include services for cardiology, pulmonary/respiratory and pre-surgical screening.
“Provisionally, this is what they would like to put into that third floor, because that is what would work best to ease pressures around the emergency department,” said David Wilks, KERHD board chair and mayor of Sparwood, during the meeting.
“Are there probably more optimal uses for that third floor? Probably, but the challenge is there’s no plan for a new tower at EKRH, and when I say no plan, that means the province is not even talking about it.”
“So that means you’re at least 15-20 years out, at least. So you’ve got what you’ve got. So we’ve got to make do with what we have and the only way to do that is to allow Interior Health to figure out operationally what they think they need to get into that third floor.
“Right now it’s notional, it’s not written in stone.”
Some complicated challenges remain outstanding.
Initially approved at $59 million in 2024, the Kootenay East Regional Hospital District board voted this past summer to provide additional funding towards the third floor addition.
Health care infrastructure projects in the region are typically cost-shared 60 per cent by the province, and up to 40 per cent by the Kootenay East Regional Hospital District, which is funded by property taxation across the East Kootenay, including Creston and Golden.
At minimum, the addition of a third floor costs $30 million, according to a cost estimate from Interior Health.
The province told the board it would support the addition of a third floor in principle, if KERHD funded 100 per cent of the cost, instead of the usual 40 per cent.
However, KERHD also has a $15 million donation from Elk Valley Resources available as a contribution towards the project, meaning the board only needs to provide an additional $15 million, which it approved this past summer.
So, under the current public budget numbers, that means the KERHD board is on the hook for $23.2 million — as per the original two-storey scope for 40 per cent of the original $59 million budget — as well as a further $15 million towards the third floor project.
Given that a cost refresh is underway, those numbers are subject to change.