Health Minister Adrian Dix stopped in Surrey to announce the progress of the initiative at Surrey Memorial Hospital.
Health Minister Adrian Dix visited Surrey on Tuesday (June 25) to provide a status update on the “30 Promised Health Measures” announced in June 2023.
Last June, Governor Dix announced the state had identified short-, long- and medium-term strategies to improve health care at Surry Memorial Hospital.
“We've made progress on every aspect of the 30-point plan,” Dix said Tuesday.
Fourteen actions have been completed and progress is being made on the remaining 16.
One of the concerns voiced by health care workers at Surrey Memorial Hospital last spring was around workforce challenges. There are 414 new job openings at Surrey Memorial Hospital and Surrey Region beginning in July 2023. Of those, 293 new positions will be filled by health care workers, including 23 of the 27 pediatric emergency positions. Four associate physicians, two nurse practitioners specializing in internal medicine and four internists have also been hired.
Additionally, starting July 1, five internal medicine residents will begin their training in the Surry Memorial Clinical Teaching Unit.
Fraser Health president and CEO Dr. Victoria Lee said officials and medical staff play a “critical role” in health care.
“We're grateful to them for their dedication to providing quality care,” she said.
But critics say the new position doesn't go far enough.
Eleanor Sturko, Surrey South provincial councillor who is running for the Surrey-Cloverdale seat for the BC Conservative Party this October, said Surrey is “significantly under-resourced” compared to Vancouver.
“We have roughly the same population, yet we have less than half the number of acute care facilities as Surrey,” Mr Sturko said.
“More health care workers is a good start, I think it's a very good thing and of course it's nice to have additional resources, but I don't think it's enough and I think they've been waiting too long.”
At a press conference in March, Dix said preparations were underway for construction of a new renal unit at Surrey Memorial Hospital. Eby announced at a press conference held at the hospital last Tuesday (June 18) that the business plans for the new renal unit had been approved, with construction scheduled to begin in August 2024.
Sturko described the announcement as a “re-announcement.”
“I think we're going to see a lot more of these types of NDP media interactions, basically midway through the election campaign,” she said.
“I'm always happy to see more resources being put into Surrey and certainly the Fraser Health region, it's really important,” Sturko said, “but when you see the government at the end of its mandate to rush to fill hundreds of health-care jobs in Surrey, I think it highlights just how little resources have been put into Surrey over the last eight years.”
The new freestanding renal hemodialysis facility will be built on the northwest corner of the Surrey Memorial Hospital campus.
Key updates announced by Dix during this week's press conference include:
• 302 new cases were referred to local respiratory services and 123 were referred to lung health clinics.
• The Wound Care Clinic is accepting 36 new appointments each week.
• Renovations to the new birthing unit are expected to be completed as scheduled by June 30, increasing the unit's capacity from six to 10 beds.
• Four beds have been added to the tertiary neonatal intensive care unit, bringing the total to 36 beds.
• Development of new MRI and CT scanners with cardiac capabilities is underway, the Ministry of Health said in a statement on Tuesday (25 June).
• A gynecology “Out-of-Operating Room Sedation Procedure Program” has been added.
Dix said he plans to report back in the coming months to provide an update on these activities. A full list of the 30 priority activities can be found on the Fraser Health website.
