Surrey’s hospital services are ‘unacceptable’: Board of Trade

The Surrey Board of Trade says the fact that some very sick residents have to drive over bridges to get appropriate health-care, is “unacceptable.”

The comments come as the board of trade releases a report, ‘Surrey’s Hospital Needs’, which finds services in the city are “severely insufficient.”

In a statement released Thursday, the SBoT says residents in the city cannot be treated for three leading causes of death — heart attack, stroke, or major trauma — as well as specialist pediatric services, and residents must head into other jurisdictions for life-saving care.

Speaking with CityNews, board President and CEO Anita Huberman says residents are “tired” of having to travel to receive health care.

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“It is a matter of life and death. When you have a heart attack and the bridge is closed due to snow or some kind of natural disaster, we cannot receive heart attack surgeries — we have to go across the bridge,” she said.

SBoT says there is no hospital south of the Fraser River that can treat major illnesses, and while the province recognizes Surrey Memorial Hospital as a regional facility, it does not have the facilities and services needed.

This is simply unacceptable, Huberman says, and conversations the board has had with the province have gone nowhere.

“The response has been, ‘That’s not what our data tells us, that’s not what our research tells us,’ but this is what we are hearing on the ground. This is what we are hearing from physicians that are treating patients at the Surrey hospital,” she said.

She says as the province is ready to break ground on the new hospital in Surrey’s Cloverdale neighbourhood this year, it’s time to rethink the services and make room for what is needed.

“Surrey is going to be the largest city in British Columbia in the next two decades,” SBoT’s statement reads. “This reality will come sooner given Federal Government immigration targets. Many of these newcomers will choose Surrey or other cities south of the Fraser River as their home. The hospitals south of the Fraser do not have the necessary investments to keep up with this population growth.”

“As it stands, there is no emergency plan that addresses how residents living south of the Fraser will access life-saving services in the event of a natural disaster.”