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The new NL Health Services facility is in the former Costco building at 28 Stavanger Drive in St. John's. (Laura Howells/CBC)
A new health-care facility in the former Costco building in St. John's is opening this week, offering several outpatient services that were relocated from city hospitals.
“It’s been several years, but it’s exciting to see that now, Tuesday, we’re going to have patients walking through the door,” said Kim Pike, clinical planner with Capital Planning and Engineering.
“We have a beautiful space here that patients can easily navigate.”
The two-story Unity Health Centre at 28 Stavanger Drive was open for public tours on Sunday, with dozens of people arriving for a first look. Patients will start coming on Tuesday.
Seats fill the spacious waiting areas on both floors, with brightly coloured signage for the different clinics. The centre has free parking, large murals on the walls, and will eventually house a coffee shop and drug store.
Pike says patients will be able to easily get around the new space, and “don't have the maze of our large and intimidating acute care hospital.”
For people accessing health care, she thinks "this is going to be a much calmer and pleasant experience." Patients will have shorter distances to walk, she said, as well as central waiting areas and better signage.
A number of outpatient services from the Health Sciences Centre, the Janeway and St. Clare’s Hospital have moved to the new centre, with more opening later.
Clinics opening Tuesday include the medicine and surgery specialty clinics, eye clinic, bariatric and total joint assessment, plastic surgery outpatient, endocrine, thrombosis, general medicine, cardiac diagnostics, orthopedics, audiology, and X-rays, among others.
More services will open in December, including blood collection, physiotherapy and occupational therapy, ultrasound appointments, pre-admission clinic, and a pain clinic. Two MRI machines will be added to the building in January.
An urgent care centre will also open at the site later this year.
N.L. Health Services is leasing the space, which was a big draw to the area when it housed Costco, before it moved in 2019.
“We’ve repurposed, revitalized an area in the city that was once kind of a desert town,” said Pike.