The Surrey Hospitals Foundation has released a report calling on the province to strike a new locally-led task force to address the city’s health care challenges.
It’s one of five recommendations stemming from a health summit of 60 key stakeholders held in the city at the end of May, as a staffing and capacity crisis at Surrey Memorial Hospital dominated headlines.
Dozens of doctors at the time signed a flurry of letters warning of unsafe conditions amid a shortage of admitting “hospitalist” doctors and congestion in the emergency room.
The report released Tuesday calls for a multi-disciplinary task force to study the current state of health care in the city, develop an evidence- and needs-based long-term strategic plan to address shortages in the region and come up with recommendations, a budget and a detailed implementation plan.
“It will be important that this task force involve appropriate representation from the community,” Surrey Hospital Foundation president and CEO Jane Adams said in a media release.
“We’re hopeful that with the right voices at the table, we can find solutions.”
Along with the task force, the report calls on the province to “match urgent needs with urgent solutions,” including an immediate solution to the hospitalist shortage.
It also calls for a comprehensive acute and community health services plan, the construction of a second tower at Surrey Memorial and improved training, education, research, recruitment and retention of doctors and other health-care workers.
The report points out that despite rapidly growing to become the province’s second-largest city, funding for Surrey’s health services and infrastructure has fallen behind all other large Canadian cities in per-capita spending.
“Vancouver, with a population of 662,000, has direct access to over 3,000 acute care beds within its municipal boundaries. Surrey, with a population of about 604,000, has 634 beds,” the report states.
“In 2021, 26,000 Surrey residents received inpatient care at SMH, another 15,000 were forced to be treated elsewhere in FHA (the Fraser health Authority). Similarly, while the SMH Emergency Department struggled to treat 137,000 patients, another 82,000 Surrey residents were forced to go to Emergency Departments at other FHA hospitals.”
The report also highlighted that despite having Canada’s busiest ER, Surrey Memorial Hospital can’t treat heart attacks, strokes and trauma, and that the hospital as B.C.’s busiest maternity ward but runs over capacity or is on diversion almost daily.
B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix did not directly respond to the recommendations, including the call for a task force.
In a statement, Dix pointed to plans announced in June to boost funding for city, following meetings with administrators and Surrey health-care providers.
“Fraser Health board and senior executive will be engaging fully with the Surrey Fraser Health team, including doctors, nurses and allied-health professionals, to create a refreshed plan that looks at the growth and specialty needs of the population, as well as how and where services should be located at (Surrey Memorial Hospital) and across the region,” Dix said in the statement.
“This will be done over the coming months and be brought to the Ministry of Health for review and action through the annual fall 2023 capital and operating planning process.”
The province has committed to fund a variety of new initiatives to improve services, including planning for renal services, net MRI and CT capabilities, critical-care and rehab, and catheterization lab and cardiology services. It also pledged to reassess and expand maternity care resources to meet provincial wait-time benchmarks and to improve flow through the hospital.
“We want to acknowledge Health Minister Adrian Dix for announcing a week after our Summit a suite of new programs and services to try to address the health care crisis in Surrey,” SHF Board Chair Harp Dhillon said.
“While the government plan will help, we believe the recommendations developed collaboratively with community and health care leaders on May 30 provide an even more robust framework for long-term, sustainable solutions.”
Dix pledged last month to expand Surrey Memorial Hospital. A new second hospital for Surrey and cancer centre in Cloverdale is slated to see construction begin this year.
- N.S. mom calls for better ultrasound access after private clinic reveals twins
- 3 women diagnosed with HIV after ‘vampire facials’ at unlicensed U.S. spa
- ‘Super lice’ are becoming more resistant to chemical shampoos. What to use instead
- Solar eclipse eye damage: More than 160 cases reported in Ontario, Quebec
Comments