Dear Editor:
During the 2017 election campaign, the NDP leader and all NDP Burnaby MLA candidates promised a new $2.1-billion Burnaby Hospital.
Reading through the NDP government’s budget 2018 documents, I feel deeply disappointed. Nothing about Burnaby Hospital in the throne speech and the budget documents, including the three-year service plan for the Ministry of Health. The concept plan for rebuilding the Burnaby Hospital in the order of $600 million was approved by the B.C. Liberal government last year and the business plan for the first stage by the Fraser Health Authority is scheduled to be completed before the end of 2018.
In the meantime, funding of $8.8 million from the province was in place, plus $5 million from the Burnaby Hospital Foundation, for a new emergency mental-health and substance-use zone and community health services consolidation project.
Without mentioning anything about Burnaby Hospital in the three-year service plan, the NDP government is going backward in supporting health-care capital investment in Burnaby.
Richard T. Lee, former MLA for Burnaby North
