Motel housing discharged Surrey hospital patients who need care and a place to stay

The Fraser Health Authority has leased all 53 rooms at a motel next to the Surrey Memorial Hospital to house vulnerable patients who have been approved for discharge, but require ongoing support and a place to stay.

The George Point Inn is hosting patients who no longer require acute care, but do require a room as they continue to heal or wait to be moved into rehabilitation or long-term care.

The move eases the pressure on the hospital’s acute care beds, leaving them for the sickest patients, while offering other supports to those who are able to move on, according to psychiatrist Dr. Marietta Van Den Berg.

“We’re calling it community transition housing and it is not that new,” the interim site medical director for Surrey Memorial Hospital told Global News.

“What we are hoping to do is provide better care in a better place for our patients who are currently in our acute hospital beds when they have actually been designated to be in an alternative level of care and discharged.”

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According to Van Den Berg, the “patient hotel” approach has been used in northern Europe for decades to address a shortage of acute care beds. She said the patients staying at the George Point Inn are clinically stable and don’t require changing medications, but still need various care supports.

“Sometimes finding those safe and appropriate places to go home to is hard because we also don’t have enough places or spaces in the community,” she explained. “Every patient has their own unique difficulties and problems.”

The approach is meant to address the diversity and complexity of the hospital’s patient population, Van Den Berg added. Discharged patients at the motel will still have access to medical staff and support services.

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No one from Fraser Health was available for an interview Wednesday.

Last month, Fraser Health confirmed that Surrey Memorial Hospital was using a portable as a “temporary pediatric emergency waiting area” to prepare for potential surges in patient volume during the winter.

Earlier this year, dozens of doctors, nurses and midwives penned public letters expressing serious concerns with a lack of resources at the hospital that have contributed to “unsafe conditions” and some adverse patient outcomes.

That prompted the provincial government to announce 30 measures to address grievances in Surrey health care, including additional staff hires, a new care and triage department, expansions for renal care, a cardiac catheterization lab, and more.

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Reached at the legislature, Health Minister Adrian Dix said social workers, nurses, doctors and others in Surrey have called for more options for patients who don’t need a hospital bed anymore but may not have proper supports post-discharge.

“We’ve seen these cases in the past,” Dix said. “People going from the hospital where they got well … then they get discharged to inadequate conditions and they end up back in the hospital.”

“This is one of the key areas we asked Fraser Health to engage on,” Dix said.

Patient stays at the George Point Inn are meant to last a few weeks, according to Fraser Health.