Fraser Health held its first board meeting following a slew of media reports and public complaints about deteriorating conditions at Surrey Memorial Hospital and, in particular, its emergency room.
However, none of the health authority’s directors addressed that issue at their public meeting June 20.
The board meeting was chaired by Jim Sinclair, former BC Federation of Labour president; also present was Victoria Lee, the authority’s CEO.
The meeting was advertised on its website as being held virtually and Fraser Health stated the public could ask questions. The 58-minute meeting took place in person, however, and was aired over the authority’s Facebook page. Fraser Health did not publish any agenda for the meeting and a request for one via the communications department was unresponsive.
The board discussed digital systems and provided an update on deaths due to illicit drugs spiked with fentanyl.
Sinclair fielded six questions and read out answers to them from a script. Questions, said to be from the public (names were not mentioned), ranged from TVs in rooms, fentanyl testing at health-care facilities, safe consumption sites, computer engineering positions and dispute resolution policies.
The one question that got close to addressing the crisis at Surrey Memorial was one regarding hospital bed expansion in the region.
Sinclair said since 2017 there has been a seven per cent increase in acute care beds and four per cent increase in long-term care beds. He said there is a new mental health facility and new wing at Royal Columbian Hospital, in New Westminster.
Meanwhile, Surrey has been starved for hospital expansions since the BC NDP took power in Victoria in 2017. A new hospital in South Surrey is in the planning stage and the crisis at Surrey Memorial prompted Health Minister Adrian Dix to announce an expansion of it, on June 7.
In May, the hospital’s Medical Staff Association stated management at Fraser Health and the B.C. Health Ministry has not provided "any tangible support" for overstretched emergency room doctors, the Canadian Press reported.
Glacier Media asked to speak to Sinclair but he did not respond to the request through the communications department.
