Lions Gate Hospital campus renewal plan begins to take shape

Staff, physicians and residents across the North Shore will be hearing more about renewal of the Lions Gate Hospital (LGH) campus in the coming months as plans to update and expand the campus begin to take shape.

“We’ve been working hard on a number of coordinated planning activities to ensure we have a sound blueprint for how the LGH campus needs to grow over the next 10 – 20 years,” explains Coastal Acute Services Director Leanne Appleton. “The key piece of this planning work is a Master Plan that, once it’s been presented to a wide group of stakeholders across the Lower Mainland, will guide all future work on our facilities.”

With more patients needing care at LGH every year, it was only a matter of time before the current buildings – approaching 60 years of age – ran out of room. Not only is overall space becoming a problem but the aging infrastructure is starting to pose challenges for both care staff and support staff making it difficult for them to:

• Meet modern infection control standards without taking more time and effort than an updated building
• Maintain service continuity when key systems need to be repaired or replaced

To get the plan to its current state, a wide range of stakeholders – including staff, physicians, senior leaders and members of the community – were engaged in assessing the current state of LGH as well as understanding the role it plays within the communities it serves.

“While many people still see LGH as a community hospital, it’s now become the fourth busiest hospital in the Lower Mainland and one of only five neurosurgery centres in BC as well as a recognized regional trauma centre,” says Leanne. “It also plays a key role as the primary referral centre for patients on the Sunshine Coast, Powell River, Sea to Sky Corridor, Bella Bella and Bella Coola.”

The LGH Master Plan will be discussed in upcoming staff and physician forums being planned across the North Shore and was unveiled last week at the North Shore Congress, a meeting of North Shore politicians and regional leaders.