Crisis at Surrey Memorial Hospital ER worsening, doctors say

Emergency room physicians at Surrey Memorial Hospital are sounding the alarm once again for what they call a  worsening crisis of severe staffing shortages, overcrowding and declining patient care.

In a letter to Fraser Health CEO Victoria Lee, who oversees health care in the region, the doctors at the Surrey, B.C., hospital blast the facility's management and demand a change in leadership.

"Despite repeated and urgent attempts to alert you to the worsening conditions in our emergency department, we have received little response directly from you," the physicians write.

"We are calling for new leadership that will engage directly with our department, observe the daily challenges of
substandard patient care and the moral distress we face, and be fully committed to meaningful improvement."

The latest cry for help follows a scathing letter penned by the physicians in May 2023 that called attention to the scope of the problems. They say Surrey Memorial has the busiest emergency department in Canada and the third busiest in North America.

According to the doctors, over the past four years the emergency department has accommodated 30 per cent more visits per year without any changes to department size. 

They say 8.4 per cent of patients are now leaving the ER without ever seeing a doctor — nearly triple the 2.9 per cent recorded between 2020 and 2021. 

Unwell but mobile patients often wait more than 12 hours to see a doctor, the letter said. It added that doctors expect waits will soon jump to more than 24 hours, but did not specify a timeframe. 

In an email to CBC News, Fraser Health spokesperson Shannon Henderson said the health authority is reviewing the letter. 

"We understand the seriousness of these concerns and we will be responding directly to the physicians involved to address them comprehensively," Henderson wrote. 

She said since July 2023, the hospital has hired 364 new staff, including emergency clinical staff and pediatric emergency workers. 

She said Fraser Health will work toward long-term solutions for the hospital's emergency department, and plans to build a new acute care tower and a new Surrey hospital are underway. 

Speaking at a housing announcement associated with the under-construction hospital in Surrey's Cloverdale neighbourhood, Premier David Eby pointed to the project's planned emergency room as proof his government is responding to the city's health-care crunch.

The new Surrey hospital is slated to open in 2030.

Health Minister Adrian Dix said Surrey is home to the largest proportion of the more than 300,000 new people added to B.C.'s health-care plan in the past two years. He said Surrey Memorial has add 476 net new staff in in that time period.