The City of Surrey will be getting a new acute care tower.
In an announcement on Monday, B.C.’s Premier David Eby said the tower will be part of the current Surrey Memorial Hospital and is expected to add capacity for areas such as medical, surgical, pediatric, perinatal, women’s health, mental health and stroke care.
The project will be in the business planning phase for the next 15 to 18 months.
“Surrey’s quickly growing population needs health care to grow with it,” Eby said in a statement.
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“People need to know health care is accessible, not after a long wait or a long drive to another community. World-class health care should be available right here in Surrey.”
Health Minister Adrian Dix said the government looks forward to hearing from health-care workers and members of the public during the planning phase.
Last Thursday, Dix announced that hundreds of new health-care workers have been hired at Surrey Memorial Hospital.
He also said planning is complete for a new renal hemodialysis building.
However, those announcements are not enough to quiet the calls for stronger health-care services in the city.
One ER physician at Surrey Memorial Hospital recently told Global News that not even the construction of the new hospital in Cloverdale will be enough to meet the region’s current needs.
Dr. Randeep Gill, an ER physician who held a rally outside Surrey City Hall in September 2023, said that six months later, he isn’t seeing enough urgency from decision-makers to address the strain on the hospital as the city continues to grapple with rapid growth.
“I don’t think that the politicians and decision-makers locally and provincially have been held accountable or are put to the task of fixing this issue,” Gill said.
“We rely on the politicians and the decision-makers to make the appropriate decisions and unfortunately, over time, we’re not seeing that because the population is growing at a vast capacity, but yet we’re not seeing the resources that are following that.”
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