Even if St. Paul's moves, care centre would stay
Dianne Doyle says area would 'continue to need . . . some services delivered from this site'
John Bermingham
The Province
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
VANCOUVER - The head of St. Paul's Hospital says that even if it moves to False Creek, there will be some kind of care centre left on the existing Burrard site.
"Our belief is that there would continue to need to be some services delivered from this site," Dianne Doyle, president of Providence Healthcare, told The Province yesterday.
"[It's] unlikely that it will be anything that requires any of the duplication of the services that we might build on a new site." Doyle said she would prefer to rebuild the 133-year-old St. Paul's on a new site at Station and Prior streets.
"You can build faster, you can get the kind of design that you want and the costs are cheaper," she said.
Doyle said she wants an urgent-care centre, with services for seniors, people with HIV/AIDS and drug users built at the current site at Burrard and Comox streets.
"That is a vision that we would be taking forward," she said. "It is at the discussion stage." B.C. Health Minister George Abbott, appearing at the opening of a $1.2-million, fast-track emergency room at St. Paul's, said Providence and Vancouver Coastal have still to work out what kind of care remains at the Burrard site.
"There would be questions about whether this site should have some emergency facilities," he said. "I don't think it's something that's going to happen quickly. We're probably talking a project that would be a billion dollars plus." Abbott said the new fast-track facility will deal with minor injuries in under two hours, with dedicated rooms for infants and kids, eye, ear, nose, throat and gynecology.
Abbott said a 22-year-old soccer player can be treated and discharged quicker than a senior who may have had a stroke.
"It frees up the emergency personnel to spend more time with the people who one suspects may have those kinds of issues," he said.
St. Paul's has already reduced its overall emergency wait times 22 per cent, to a maximum of 12 hours, two hours short of its target of 10.
Aaron Jasper, chair of the Save St. Paul's Coalition, wants a fully staffed emergency room left at the current site of St. Paul's for the downtown core's 90,000 residents.
"We need a full emergency ward in the downtown core, not just an urgent-care centre," said Jasper. "Those essential services need to stay."
jbermingham@png.canwest.com
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/ne...c-24a033365d77
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