Surrey Memorial Hospital overcrowding draws heat from B.C. Nurses' Union
The B.C. Nurses' Union has claimed that there's a serious staffing shortage across Surrey Memorial Hospital—from the emergency department to intensive care unit to the family-birthing unit.
"Fraser Health have done this," BCNU president Gayle Duteil alleged. "They have not hired enough nurses to care for the patients that are coming through their doors in droves at this point in time. This is winter surge, for sure, but it happens every winter."
Her comments came after CBC News had obtained an internal bulletin to staff revealing that Surrey Memorial has "the highest volume ever of patients in Emergency needing admission without assigned beds".
The memo stated that the hospital has set up an operations command centre to address overcrowding.
Surrey's population increases by about 1,000 residents per month. Nearly 500,000 people live in Surrey, which has only one acute-care hospital with an emergency room.
Meanwhile, Fraser Health is collaborating with local universities and the City of Surrey on a project called Innovation Boulevard to develop longer-term technological solutions to the problem of overcrowding.
Comments
6 Comments
Pirates of the Pacific...
Jan 18, 2015 at 4:10pm
...a.k.a. BC Nurses Union.
Why not just raid some more nurses? Problem solved.
Finn Bailey
Jan 18, 2015 at 4:49pm
"This is a winter surge, for sure, but it happens every winter." So it's not really new news. It is old news. What is new "news", but not included in this article? The BCNU has just started bargaining for a new collective agreement. Oh. That's what this is really about.
Give us a break
Jan 18, 2015 at 6:47pm
Those who have no idea what nurses are challenged with on a daily basis this is not new "news" give them this is not about a new collective agreement simply repetition of what is and has been an ongoing nursing issue.
To You Vapid Drones
Jan 18, 2015 at 7:21pm
Fire 50% of the employees of Fraser Health who's jobs do not either interact directly with the public or those who's jobs do not maintain the facilities in which the people are seen. Bureaucratic bloat costs us hundreds of millions of dollars every year, with more and more "managers," "overseers," "liaisons" and other useless memo pushers being hired even as frontline staff are eliminated entirely. The money spent expanding Surrey Memorial included palatial office space for managers, and more than enough funds for filling a plethora of new positions to deal with a bugger hospital. Sadly they didn't spend as much on actual staffing.
Bureaucrats are killing healthcare and education in this province, happy to line their pockets and watch as the drones blame government or unions even when entire departments must be closed. Budgets go up, the numbers of frontline workers goes down or doesn't keep pace with growth but you can rest easy because there are always plenty of bureaucrats around.
@To You Vapid Drones
Jan 18, 2015 at 10:08pm
I remember reading Dilbert growing up, I thought it was funny. Now I see some people think it was a textbook for managing public services! And in Dilbert, there was one PHB to several engineers. Imagine what things look like when you start having more PHBs to engineers...but really where would any organization be without a high-level task-force dedicated to total excellence and quality?
Forest
Jan 19, 2015 at 7:50am
Fraser health hopes to "develop long-term technological solutions to over-crowding". Oh, you mean "take a number'? How about firing more administrators and hiring more nurses!