B.C.’s Health Minister Adrian Dix said government officials will be meeting with emergency room doctors and staff at Surrey Memorial Hospital later this week after doctors sent a scathing letter to Fraser Health CEO Victoria Lee.
“We are making very significant progress, all of that progress was based on meetings with the staff at Surrey Memorial Hospital,” Dix said.
He said that 472 net new staff have been recruited to Surrey Memorial Hospital.
“The emergency room doctors share my commitment to recruitment,” Dix added.
This comes one day after a group of emergency physicians at Surrey Memorial Hospital sent a letter to Fraser Health CEO Victoria Lee saying deteriorating conditions at the ER are leading to substandard care for patients.
The doctors said emergency department visits have gone up by 30 per cent over the past four years while the size of the department remains unchanged.
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They also said the rate of patients leaving the ER without being seen has tripled since 2020-21.
“Yes there’s population growth but there’s also recruitment and retention of talent and that’s really important to recognize,” Dr. Claudine Storness-Bliss, an ob-gyn at Surrey Memorial Hospital, told Global News.
“That’s been a particular problem in Surrey because we see such a high acuity of cases, meaning complex sick people who really need help.”
Fraser Health told Global News it is reviewing the letter and that it understands the seriousness of the concerns.
It said it will be responding directly to the physicians involved.
Eby was in Surrey at the site of a future Cloverdale hospital discussing the need for continuing to build out our health-care infrastructure.
After taking pre-election campaign jabs at BC Conservative Leader John Rustad, Eby discussed the amount of people matched with family doctors over the last year.
“Our government is proud to share that we have connected 248,500 people to a family doctor or nurse practitioner in the last 12 months in the province of British Columbia, we’ve got hundreds of more people getting matched every single day. 4000 a week,” Eby said.
Part of the event was to discuss the Workforce Housing initiative to use provincially owned land to build nearby housing for hospital staff to recruit and retain staff.
“It sends a clear message that our well being is a priority, which in turn can make us more dedicated to our roles, it will encourage us to want to work here, settle here, and establish roots in this community, Victoria Hold, an occupational therapist at Surrey Memorial Hospital said.
Construction of the new Surrey hospital and BC Cancer Centre is set to be complete in October of 2029.
-with files from Kareem Gouda
