Surrey: The B.C. government has announced steps to improve health care at Surrey Memorial Hospital.
To bolster hospital’s function as a tertiary hospital, the province and Fraser Health outlined specific actions, including planning work to expand the existing Surrey Memorial Hospital by improving and increasing capacity for more inpatient and outpatient care, surgeries and clinical programs, in addition to the new Surrey hospital being built in Cloverdale.
The government said details about steps to improve health at the hospital will be shared in the coming months, but meanwhile, focus will be on immediate and medium-term actions.
On Wednesday, the government announced that as part of the immediate action, the province will work with hospitalists to stabilize their physician workforce and sufficient service levels to ensure continued access to inpatient medicine services.
Besides, the province will work to build out capacity and establish a new contract and increase funding available for additional physician coverage, nursing and allied-health services, including opening a care and triage unit in the emergency department.
The B.C. government also announced to utilize nearby community health-care services to relieve patient demand at the emergency department, including additional resources to expand hours of urgent and primary-care centres.
In medium-term action, the government included expanding renal services within 18 months; building a second interventional radiology suite at Surrey Memorial Hospital, which will enable stroke and cardiac specialty expansion; adding two cardiac catheterization labs at Surrey Memorial Hospital; and adding new MRI and CT and replacing existing CT with cardiac capabilities to increase access to diagnostic services.
“I am grateful for the many health-care workers at Surrey Memorial Hospital who have raised their concerns to me, including the hard-working people who have taken time out of their day over the past week to speak with me,” said Adrian Dix, Minister of Health.
“Along with Fraser Health, we are all working together on real, meaningful solutions to improve hospital flow and ensure health-care workers are fully supported in providing their patients with the best possible care. This includes a plan to expand the hospital to better meet the needs of this growing community. We’re going to keep working with health-care providers in Surrey and across the province to strengthen the care people need,” he added.