B.C. health authorities respond to critical letter from Surrey ER doctors

B.C. health authorities responded Tuesday to a letter from Surrey ER doctors, who say the situation at Surrey Memorial Hospital (SMH) has surpassed crisis levels and has gotten even worse in the last year.

Emergency physicians at SMH released a scathing letter Monday expressing their concerns over the “little response” from Fraser Health despite its recent efforts to address the “deteriorating conditions” in their department.

The letter, signed by the emergency department’s entire staff of physicians and addressed to the CEO of Fraser Health, Dr. Victoria Lee, asks why conditions are continuing to deteriorate despite the “thoughtful proposals presented” to them.

Premier David Eby said the province is working on addressing health-care pressures by building the second hospital in Surrey and connecting more people with family doctors to reduce the need for them to go to the emergency room.

A statement from Fraser Health says it understands the seriousness of the concerns and will be responding directly to the physicians “to address them comprehensively.”

“While we have more work to do, we are pleased to report that in addition to the thousands of staff already working at the hospital, since July 2023 we posted 575 net new positions for the Surrey Memorial Hospital and Surrey communities,” the statement says.

The letter from the doctors says that since 2021, staffing has increased eight per cent, while patient volumes have jumped 30 per cent.

The letter says doctors have tried dozens of times to declare a “Code Orange” when they believe the department is pushed beyond a safe level, but 24 of those 25 requests have been denied, making doctors reluctant to call for help.

“The combination of long shifts, overwhelming patient volumes, high acuity, inadequate support, compensation disparities, and the invalidation of our lived experiences has contributed to significant burnout among our staff,” the letter says.

“Physicians are facing exhaustion, anxiety, and an overall decline in their mental health, which ultimately compromises patient care.”

It also claims physicians are only able to spend an average of 16 minutes with each patient, compared to the average 44 minutes at Vancouver General Hospital.

The provincial government says it’s working on the situation in Surrey by hiring more ER doctors and adding another hospital, but when asked about concerns that even that second hospital isn’t enough to keep up with the city’s growing population, David Eby pointed the blame at John Rustad, who was a cabinet minister with the former BC Liberals.

“In things like schools, hospitals, transit, under the previous government, Surrey consistently got bypassed. For the last four years, John Rustad sat around the cabinet table. Not one new school, not one,” said Eby.

Health Minister Adrian Dix says the province is doing everything it can to recruit more doctors and nurses.

“With respect to emergency room doctors, we have made changes in a number of communities about the way we’ve paid doctors,” said Dix. 

“In Surrey, in the emergency room, we have a fee for service model, and Surrey doctors have made some proposals around that, some specific proposals that they believe would help with recruitment. And we’ll, of course, look at those.”

—With files from The Canadian Press