Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan called for community and business support for a new hospital in his annual State of the City address today.
The current hospital on Kincaid Street opened in 1952 with an extended care wing and an acute care tower added during the 1970s.
"Our hospital has been left to atrophy over the years without the support that it needs to be very, very good," he said in an interview after his speech to the Burnaby Board of Trade this afternoon.
Corrigan wants the new hospital to be built at Canada Way and Willingdon Avenue, on the site of the former provincial youth detention centre.
The proximity to the British Columbia Institute of Technology and Discovery Park would make the new hospital a perfect place for training and research, Corrigan said.
"I see the coupling of all of it being what they haven't been able to accomplish with UBC," Corrigan said, adding the University of British Columbia hospital is "mainly a doctors training hospital but it is so remote that it doesn't have the connection with the community. But I think if you had a hospital like this, you would have that community base."
He added that Simon Fraser University's kinesiology department could also train at the new hospital.
"It would be interesting to have a teaching hospital that wasn't focused on teaching doctors, that was focused on teaching all of the other people who are required to work at a hospital, which is the majority," Corrigan said.
He has approached Fraser Health and planners at Burnaby Hospital with the idea, he said, as well as the Burnaby Hospital Foundation, the business community, and the ethnic community.
"I'm hoping I can get some of our local politicians involved," he said, adding it is an issue that crosses all party lines.
"I'm trying to create groundswell of people who are willing to take on this task," he said. "I've been surprised by how much interest there is."
The current Burnaby hospital has had the same amount of facility improvements and investment over the years as other older hospitals such as St. Paul's and Vancouver General Hospital in Vancouver, and Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, Corrigan said.
The persistent outbreaks of the highly infectious bacteria Clostridium difficile at the hospital have highlighted the need for a new facility, he added.
"That's why the government is looking at capital expenditures," he said, adding fixing the old building would be impossible.
The provincial government will have to decide if retrofitting the newer building and adding to it is the way to go, or if they build an entirely new facility, Corrigan said.
If they do decide to build anew, the Willingdon location would be more pragmatic, he said.
"It's right off the highway, in the centre of everything, " he said. "It could be designed for easy access.
"There are a lot of positives, in my mind," he added.
But Corrigan said it isn't something that would happen overnight, or even in a year or two.
"It probably would not be completed while I'm mayor," he said. "It's going to take at least a decade to complete a project like this."
For the full state of the city address, click here.
