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VICTORIA — One of Vancouver’s highest-profile downtown buildings is being repurposed into a hospital in case the coronavirus pandemic worsens in B.C.

The Vancouver Convention Centre will be outfitted with 271 beds for people recovering from non-COVID illnesses, surgeries, heart attacks or injuries, said Health Minister Adrian Dix. Those patients may need to be moved from existing hospital beds into the convention centre in coming days and weeks to make space for COVID-19 patients if the outbreak continues to worsen, he said.

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The new patient care tower at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, which has not yet opened, will also be set up to handle patients moved from hospitals and could accommodate 80 beds, said Dix.

“The purpose of these alternate sites is to prepare for all scenarios,” Dix said.

“Right now there are 4,233 empty hospital beds. So this is creating even more capacity than that. And to do that you have to prepare in advance, you can’t decide two days from now you need a temporary hospital and put that together.”