Good news for residents in Bowmanville. The local hospital is set to get a new critical care unit, and doctors think it’s the perfect addition to the hospital for patients to get better care.

Originally meant to be a part of the hospital’s $10-million redevelopment project, hospital officials decided to go ahead and build the critical care unit portion of the project in advance, due to its urgency. According to Dr. Benj Fuller, an E.R. doctor at the Bowmanville hospital, the redevelopment project would’ve included new emergency room facilities, but it became clear to doctors and healthcare personnel working at the hospital that a CCU was much more important.

The new critical care unit, which will cost around $1.3 million to develop, will be funded by the Memorial Hospital Foundation-Bowmanville.

A new CCU should be what specialists need to get work done at the hospital, this according to Lakeridge CEO Kevin Empey. The lack of a proper CCU he said, has impeded the recruitment of new specialists to practice in Bowmanville.

The future of Bowmanville’s hospital was discussed in 2009, when doctors shared their worries on the imminent shortage of specialists and internists that might affect the medical institution’s services and quality of patient care.