The B.C. government is holding a press conference to provide an update on “health-care actions” in Surrey.
Global News will be holding the live-stream in this article, which is scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m.
In September 2023, Surrey Memorial physicians held a rally in the Surrey Civic Plaza outside city hall. Hundreds of community members attended the rally.
The rally, which was led by Dr. Randeep Gill, Surrey Hospitals Foundation’s director, said health-care services in the city have been underfunded for decades.
“These are decades of issues, decades of chronic underfunding and we look forward to the response from the (province),” Gill said.
“We can’t treat the three leading causes of death here in the south of the Fraser. We need acute care beds. We are decades behind.”
The protest followed letters from dozens of physicians at Surrey Memorial Hospital in the spring, warning of a resource crisis that, over time, has led to “unsafe conditions” and “poor outcomes” for patients.
Just days after the rally, the province announced that ground had been broken on a long-awaited second hospital, which has a completion date of 2029.
Premier David Eby said the start of construction on the new $2.88-billion hospital and cancer treatment centre is a much-needed health-care expansion in one of the province’s fastest-growing communities.
“This will be the largest capital investment south of the Fraser in our province’s history,” Eby touted on Sept. 12, 2023.
“It will add a second emergency room in the city of Surrey, a surgical and imaging department — it will have the latest in health-care technology.”
The facility will have 168 beds, 55 emergency department treatment spaces, a surgical and perioperative suite with five operating rooms, a pharmacy, a full-service laboratory and academic spaces. The cancer care centre will also have 54 chemotherapy treatment spaces and a 50-room oncology ambulatory care unit.
Health Minister Adrian Dix said the complex is designed to complement and work in conjunction with the Surrey Memorial Hospital. The second hospital will not have a maternity ward or cardiac catheterization lab, the latter of which was recently promised as an addition to Surrey Memorial.
— More to come …
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
