Burnaby North MLA Janet Routledge perhaps said it best this week following news that Burnaby Hospital was finally going to be transformed into a state-of-the-art health-care facility after decades of dithering by various B.C. premiers.
“@BCLiberals let it crumble while making empty promises,” Routledge tweeted.
The people who work in Burnaby Hospital might take offence at that insinuation, but it’s not a reflection of their great work.
It’s just that their great work was being done in spite of a facility that hadn’t seen significant upgrades in more than 40 years.
As someone who was born in Burnaby Hospital, and whose mother receives treatment at occasionally, I felt somewhat embarrassed at the state of the place.
That’s all going to change after B.C. Premier John Horgan announced a $1.3-billion redevelopment, which includes adding more beds and two new patient-care towers. Horgan said the project will impact every part of the existing hospital campus.
The two new patient-care towers will offer new wards and operating rooms, a total of almost 400 beds – the majority in single rooms – and a new cancer treatment centre.
Burnaby Hospital, built in 1952, currently has 297 beds and has more than 70,000 visits annually.
The redevelopment begins with a new six-storey, 11,858-square-foot, 78-bed tower that will include an upgraded mental health and substance use inpatient unit and a new maternity ward. The tower is expected to open in 2023, with construction starting in 2021.
Horgan also said the emergency department will be expanded, increasing the number of treatment bays from 47 to 62. And the redevelopment will add four new operating rooms, plus 18 new pre-operative and post-operative recovery spaces.
The new facility will be built and the existing facility will be demolished in phases.
“We’ll actually have essentially a new hospital in an existing site,” said Victoria Lee, president and CEO of Fraser Health. “The majority will be new and a small proportion will be existing (facilities) that will be updated.”
During the 2017 B.C. election, Horgan pledged to first fix up the existing hospital and then spend $2.1 billion to replace it. Instead, the NDP government has opted to skip straight to replacing the hospital for $800 million less.
The new $1.3-billion budget does not mean plans have been scaled back, Health Minister Adrian Dix said, calling it “the largest health-care capital project in the province in B.C. history.”
Burnaby is the third-biggest city in B.C., but does not have the type of facility befitting a city of this size.
The four Burnaby MLAs, including Raj Chouhan, Katrina Chen and Anne Kang all did victory laps on social media after the announcement.
They have every right to because it’s under their watch that this got done.
And full credit for Horgan not playing politics with this. He could have delayed this decision until the next election campaign, but didn’t.
The BC Liberals had more than a decade to make this announcement, but failed to do so.
It’s about time our community has the kind of facility we can really be proud of.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
