Anger and fear rippled through Delta, Ladner and Tsawwassen over the weekend after a doctor shortage led to the closure of Delta Hospital’s emergency room for two evenings, leaving almost 120,000 people without critical access to health care.
It was a double blow to the South Delta region, which not only doesn’t have any other walk-in health-care services, but is also hotly debating how it can accommodate potentially thousands of new residents as part of mandatory housing density requirements from the provincial NDP government.
“A lot of people are shocked and scared,” said Delta South MLA Ian Paton.
It made for an eerie weekend, he said, as residents were left listening to fire truck and ambulance sirens in the evening with no idea where people in medical distress might go.
“They are very concerned, and so am I,” said Delta Mayor George Harvie. He intends to get city council together Monday morning to issue a demand to the provincial government and Fraser Health for more information.
“Our community really supports our Delta Hospital, it raises millions of dollars, but we need to have the province provide some additional services or either expand the emergency department itself,” he said.
Fraser Health announced the closures online using the euphemistic phrase “temporary service reductions” and said it was working with ambulance services to help redirect people to a different hospital in Richmond, Surrey or White Rock. It also warned of high wait times at other ERs across Metro Vancouver.
ER closures have been a crisis in B.C. for more than two years, but mainly confined to rural communities, where residents have complained it can mean multi-hour trips to the nearest hospital in an emergency.
In urban B.C., health authorities have so far been able to shuffle around staff to avert closures in stressed facilities like Peace Arch Hospital’s ER. Until now.
“The shocking part for me and for everybody is you think this has been happening all over the province in rural B.C., Meritt, 100 Mile House, Oliver and Williams Lake, but you think it would probably never happen to us in our great little hospital in Delta and then all of a sudden it’s like wow,” said Paton.
“I mean, for God’s sake, how many times have we brought this up in the last seven and a half years, that this needs to be fixed in this province. And time and time again, the NDP has said yeah we are working on it, and we have done this and that. But it’s getting worse. It’s not just little towns, it’s Delta.”
Premier David Eby pledged to do more to help avoid hospital ER closures after almost losing October’s provincial election, and directed new Health Minister Josie Osborne in her mandate letter to take unspecified steps to address the issue.
He’s also pledged to fast-track provincial accreditation for international doctors by forcing six-week standards on the physician regulatory college. The hope is that it immediately recruits more doctors, while the province builds a new medical school in Surrey as a longer-term solution.
But in Delta, the ER closures have ignited anger on larger issues. The lack of reliable ambulance service, and long ambulance waits, are also tied up in the issue. Depending on traffic, even an ambulance with its sirens on could have trouble quickly getting through the Massey Tunnel or other traffic jams en route to another metro hospital.
The NDP government has also not created an Urgent and Primary Care Centre (UPCC) in South Delta, and walk-in services are non-existent, leaving no options outside of the hospital.
“Just like our bus service, we always seem to get the crumbs when you are at the end of the line,” said Harvie. “And this is a real concern we haven't been able to get something to take off the pressure on the Delta Hospital emergency department.”
Anger rose in online social media forums during the weekend over the NDP government’s mandatory density requirements and housing growth targets, with residents expressing frustration that the province shouldn’t be forcing more people into the region if it can’t even offer proper services to existing residents.
The flashpoint is a proposal for four 24-storey condo towers at Tsawwassen Town Centre, which would add more than 1,433 people to the small town and strain existing roads, schools and other infrastructure. The project is currently before council, though there is unspoken pressure by the NDP government to approve it, due to provincially-set housing growth targets.
Paton said the ER closures are further fuelling that debate, with much anger being directed at the province for failing to keep up services.
“An emergency department is paramount, it’s the most important service the hospital provides,” said Harvie. “We have a growing population here. I know it’s a growing concern in the community.”
Rob Shaw has spent more than 17 years covering B.C. politics, now reporting for CHEK News and writing for Glacier Media. He is the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast Political Capital, and a regular guest on CBC Radio.
