A tipping point at 50 years

Tomorrow, Richmond Hospital reaches a major milestone, celebrating its 50-year anniversary.

Since 1966, Richmond Hospital has been looking after the health care needs of all of us in Richmond. And while the hospital celebrates the past half a century of talented, dedicated and compassionate care here at home, the future is cause for concern.

Simply put, the original patient care tower, now 50 years old is seismically unstable, obsolete and at the end of its lifespan and the community continues to grow, outpacing Richmond Hospital’s capacity.

More beds needed

When Richmond Hospital first opened, it had 132 beds to serve the community’s 50,000 residents. Today, Richmond is at 213,000 residents and counting, but the hospital has only approximately 225 funded beds. Our population has more than quadrupled, but the number of beds has not even doubled. And the number of patients will continue to climb: Richmond can expect 20,000 more people in the next five years. By 2030, there will be a quarter of a million people here living in our city.

To put the need into in perspective, no other hospital in B.C. has fewer acute care beds per capita than Richmond. Many of the recently approved hospitals in B.C. have twice as many beds per capita as Richmond.

Richmond’s population is getting older overall. In fact, according to BC Stats our community has the fastest growing seniors population in the entire province. In 2014, there were 31,000 seniors in Richmond. That number is expected to jump by 44 per cent in the next five years and more than double by 2030. Richmond’s seniors have the longest life expectancy in Canada at 84.9 years. As you can imagine, this will place extreme pressure on our hospital’s ability to provide acute care services.

Health care is also delivered differently today than it was in 1966. We know more now. New hospitals in B.C., for example, are designed with private rooms, the number one way to reduce exposure to dangerous infections.

Drawing attention to the issue

Richmond needs a new acute care tower. If there were a commitment today from Vancouver Coastal Health and the Provincial Government, it would still take at least five years to design and build a tower. We understand there are many health care priorities in the province and the region, but the tower’s seismic issues have been known for more than 10 years. And everybody can see that Richmond is not going to stop growing. We believe Richmond’s needs are strong.

That’s why we are drawing attention to this issue and championing the replacement of a building that has reached the end of its 50-year life cycle. Richmond Hospital Foundation has committed to raise donor funds to contribute to the cost of the project, but we need a Vancouver Coastal Health and provincial government funding commitment as well.

We need your voice to help us advance this cause and ask you share your thoughts with your local MLA. A new acute care tower would address seismic issues, capacity issues and improvements in how health care is delivered today in Richmond.

Together, we can make this vision a reality.