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St. Paul's Hospital to Relocate to False Creek Flats


DonLever

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Providence Health Care today announced plans to relocate St. Paul's Hospital to the False Creek Flats next to the Pacific Rail Station. St. Paul's will remain open while the new state of the art facility is being built.

From the Globe and Mail:

After 120 years on its current downtown Vancouver site, the venerable St. Pauls Hospital is moving three kilometres across town to a new $1-billion health centre that planners hope will be ready within seven years.

The plan, announced Monday, is to build a new St. Pauls complex on an 7.5-hectare site at Station Street, not far from the citys current bus and train station and just south of the Downtown Eastside and Chinatown.

It would be open by 2022, project lead Neil MacConnell told a packed news conference.

Its a scenario that could open up massive redevelopment of the hospitals current location on Burrard Street, but also dramatically change the area surrounding the new site in the citys east side.

But theres also likely to be considerable debate ahead about maintaining health-care services for the populous West End area of Vancouver, which has come to rely on St. Pauls.

Providence Health Care, which operates St. Pauls, said it had secured $500 million from the B.C. government and is committed to raising another $500 million, largely by leveraging the current site, which is located on prime Vancouver real estate.

He said there have been no specific decisions on land sales and he added there may be revenue from non-hospital use at the new Station Street site, as well as cash from donors.

Officials said it was smarter to move to a new home than spending $80 million for the seismic upgrades now required for the current St. Pauls.

Providence and the B.C. government have been talking about this new renewal plan since the end of 2014.

In a statement, B.C. Health Minister Terry Lake said he was intent on moving St. Pauls redevelopment ahead this year, but only if it was done properly.

After a serious review of the idea, we were convinced that the Station Street site would best meet the needs of the local, Lower Mainland and provincial population the hospital serves now and in the long term, he said.

The new St. Pauls will better meet the needs of patients now and for the next 100 years.

There have been previous talks about renewing St. Pauls, but officials said they are serious about this new plan.

Dianne Doyle, president and CEO of Providence Health Care, said the authority has exhaustively reviewed its options for redeveloping the current site and concluded it is just better to move, using the value of the existing hospital location to pay for the new facility.

A key step ahead is a business plan, to be written over the next year, to finalize ideas for assembling and organizing the health-care facilities that will be part of the new hospital.

Mr. McConnell said Providence is open to a conversation with residents of the West End about leaving a facility of some kind behind to meet their health-care needs.

That may or may not include space on the old St. Pauls site, he said.

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I like how some peoples arguments against this is that if there's an earthquake the current location is better for that but in that case the building will have collapsed cause its ancient. It would need a bigger investment to bring that above earthquake code than it is to build a new place.

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So I guess they will tear the old building down? That's too bad it is a nice looking building. I wouldn't mind seeing them restore it.

My grandpa was born in St. Paul's in 1928, myself as well in 91

It's a nice looking building... On the outside. The hospital is extremely run-down and in need of so many upgrades you might as well just build a new hospital. Every elevator feels like a death trap, every washroom has issues with water (i.e. hot water/leaks), and the layout of the hospital itself is quite silly. The ER facilities are too small to keep up with the daily number of admissions every day as well.

My concern is what this means in terms of accessibility/delivery of health care. St. Paul's is currently located centrally downtown and made EMS response/transportation times on the tolerable side of atrocious. Emergency crews would have to drive a fair distance extra to get to/from the hospital now. Combine that with rush hour traffic, and this will easily add several minutes onto each response/transportation time which is already WAY above acceptable levels.

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The new location is a good place for a hospital as it's very close to the DTES. Plus the existing location for St. Pauls is terribly congested on Burrard there and is probably a pain for the ambulance crews to get in. Also the old building would pretty much collapse with any size earthquake so it's smart to build anew.

The time to transport patients from downtown to terminal and main is fine as long as they don't screw with the viaducts!

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My concern is what this means in terms of accessibility/delivery of health care. St. Paul's is currently located centrally downtown and made EMS response/transportation times on the tolerable side of atrocious. Emergency crews would have to drive a fair distance extra to get to/from the hospital now. Combine that with rush hour traffic, and this will easily add several minutes onto each response/transportation time which is already WAY above acceptable levels.

I wonder if there is anything in the billion dollar budget for some extra ambulance stations that would reach the areas a little quicker. It wouldn't cut down on travel time to the hospital once they pick up whoever needs a ride, but they might cut down wait times by a fraction.

I don't know much about the logistics of it, but a station downtown, even in the old hospital location, makes sense in my head.

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I wonder if there is anything in the billion dollar budget for some extra ambulance stations that would reach the areas a little quicker. It wouldn't cut down on travel time to the hospital once they pick up whoever needs a ride, but they might cut down wait times by a fraction.

I don't know much about the logistics of it, but a station downtown, even in the old hospital location, makes sense in my head.

Unfortunately that wouldn't make much of a difference since the issue lies within an ambulance/staff shortage as well. On a typical weekend, BCAS has called stacked up to their eyeballs. Ambulances from Squamish always have to migrate down to the downtown core to try to fill the gaps, and that doesn't help one bit (not to mention leaves huge gaps in coverage up north).

If you have a non-life threatening need for an ambulance, it's not unusual anymore to have to wait up to a couple hours before an ambulance is even assigned to your call. That, to me, in an urban area is absolutely unacceptable.

Anyway, ambulances/BCAS are a whole different story run by a whole different management within the government. EHS has been riddled with problems for so long already, I don't see anything changing.

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Unfortunately that wouldn't make much of a difference since the issue lies within an ambulance/staff shortage as well. On a typical weekend, BCAS has called stacked up to their eyeballs. Ambulances from Squamish always have to migrate down to the downtown core to try to fill the gaps, and that doesn't help one bit (not to mention leaves huge gaps in coverage up north).

If you have a non-life threatening need for an ambulance, it's not unusual anymore to have to wait up to a couple hours before an ambulance is even assigned to your call. That, to me, in an urban area is absolutely unacceptable.

Anyway, ambulances/BCAS are a whole different story run by a whole different management within the government. EHS has been riddled with problems for so long already, I don't see anything changing.

When I responded to your original post I wasn't even considering understaffed/undervehicled service. I failed to pick up on you hinting it as well as it seemed you were more concerned about wait times for the existing fleet.

Knowing a few people who drive ambulances in Vancouver/Victoria I forgot about their complaints as well when I was writing earlier. Much of it is about how busy they are, the long hours they work, and how they have to decide which calls to respond to even though 2 might be the exact same thing. That's when triage really sucks, but what else do you do?

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I don't know if its still possible. But I never understood why at the Children's Hospital Site, why they can't just put a separate and maybe slightly smaller version of old Shaunghessy Hospital to general patients to help improve capacity in hospitals around town.

It would certainly help ease the load on St. Pauls, VGH and Richmond. But this is typical BC Government thinking. Let's build/renovate facilities instead of providing you know funding to doctors, nurses, techs, equipment, ambulance.....

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If it sits with empty rooms and beds, then that's hardly an improvement. In building a shiny new hospital, let's hope it runs at capacity and provides some much needed relief as a result. With a current healthcare situation that sees some stuck in broom closets and hallways, let's make maximum use out of the structures we have. That's important too.

I am forever grateful to staff at St. Paul's...who saved my Mother's life when a brain aneurysm burst. They are world class in my view and I hope it remains that way.

I'm all for a new/improved facility...long overdue.

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Why does every single Gov run building project have to be a architectural achievement? How bout save a hundred million bucks and just build a functional hospital. We dont need fancy. We dont need 50 foot tall glass atriums. We need beds with the staff and equipment to go along with them. Every bridge, every skytrain station, every library. Every new one is always way overpriced with reduced functionality so some bureaucrat can point at it and say 'Isnt that pretty. I had that built".

Yes, Vancouver is a nice looking city and nice looking buildings help but with Gov funding cut so close to the bone nowadays it seems irresponsible to spend more than needed on this and similar projects.

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I guess I'm just still angry over the priorities of our Provincial government. A few years ago, I got cut off on my motorcycle, and dropped the bike and flew off. I dinged up my ribs, and it was really hurting at around 4 am. So I went to Richmond General.

After waiting 1.5 hours, a very tired female doctor came to see me. I advised what happened, and how the pain was really bad.

She said I had two options. Rest and take Advil, or wait another 2 hours to get an x-ray. I was floored. In the end I felt it was a complete waste of my time. I was hoping she'd give me something a little stronger for the pain. She didn't. So I left, had breakfast and picked up some Advil and went home.

9 years ago, my Dad went to Nanaimo General for a brain aneurysm. He was in palliative care for 6 days. During the time I was there, I never saw one doctor checking up on him. Only 3 very overworked nurses. Fortunately my Aunt is a nurse, so she was able to help my Dad be comfortable in his last days. But I'm walking around this huge hospital, with ongoing construction, and hardly any nurses or doctors around. Appalling to say the least. As OT said, we should spend less on sleek beautiful buildings and have hospitals build for function, and be staffed properly.

In fact if I was in charge I'd make every hospital at full capacity. If there is no wait times, then contract to US healthcare providers and have any excess capacity charged to Americans so that we can make a profit off of them. Any profit from the hospitals assist in improving equipment, facilities etc. And a portion of the profit plowed back into health care to make sure we're funded properly.

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I guess I'm just still angry over the priorities of our Provincial government. A few years ago, I got cut off on my motorcycle, and dropped the bike and flew off. I dinged up my ribs, and it was really hurting at around 4 am. So I went to Richmond General.

After waiting 1.5 hours, a very tired female doctor came to see me. I advised what happened, and how the pain was really bad.

She said I had two options. Rest and take Advil, or wait another 2 hours to get an x-ray. I was floored. In the end I felt it was a complete waste of my time. I was hoping she'd give me something a little stronger for the pain. She didn't. So I left, had breakfast and picked up some Advil and went home.

9 years ago, my Dad went to Nanaimo General for a brain aneurysm. He was in palliative care for 6 days. During the time I was there, I never saw one doctor checking up on him. Only 3 very overworked nurses. Fortunately my Aunt is a nurse, so she was able to help my Dad be comfortable in his last days. But I'm walking around this huge hospital, with ongoing construction, and hardly any nurses or doctors around. Appalling to say the least. As OT said, we should spend less on sleek beautiful buildings and have hospitals build for function, and be staffed properly.

In fact if I was in charge I'd make every hospital at full capacity. If there is no wait times, then contract to US healthcare providers and have any excess capacity charged to Americans so that we can make a profit off of them. Any profit from the hospitals assist in improving equipment, facilities etc. And a portion of the profit plowed back into health care to make sure we're funded properly.

I suggest that people in the province vote the liberals out then. It's been a wee bit too long here for this slashing and burning of healthcare and education. Time for a correction of sorts.
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I guess I'm just still angry over the priorities of our Provincial government. A few years ago, I got cut off on my motorcycle, and dropped the bike and flew off. I dinged up my ribs, and it was really hurting at around 4 am. So I went to Richmond General.

After waiting 1.5 hours, a very tired female doctor came to see me. I advised what happened, and how the pain was really bad.

She said I had two options. Rest and take Advil, or wait another 2 hours to get an x-ray. I was floored. In the end I felt it was a complete waste of my time. I was hoping she'd give me something a little stronger for the pain. She didn't. So I left, had breakfast and picked up some Advil and went home.

9 years ago, my Dad went to Nanaimo General for a brain aneurysm. He was in palliative care for 6 days. During the time I was there, I never saw one doctor checking up on him. Only 3 very overworked nurses. Fortunately my Aunt is a nurse, so she was able to help my Dad be comfortable in his last days. But I'm walking around this huge hospital, with ongoing construction, and hardly any nurses or doctors around. Appalling to say the least. As OT said, we should spend less on sleek beautiful buildings and have hospitals build for function, and be staffed properly.

In fact if I was in charge I'd make every hospital at full capacity. If there is no wait times, then contract to US healthcare providers and have any excess capacity charged to Americans so that we can make a profit off of them. Any profit from the hospitals assist in improving equipment, facilities etc. And a portion of the profit plowed back into health care to make sure we're funded properly.

The bigger issue is people going to the ER room for non-emergency issues. I cracked my forehead open and was pouring blood. I went to the ER. Had to wait 3 hours with blood dripping from my head. The ER room was full of people who clearly just had the flu, with a healthy mix of drug seekers. Took me about 4 hours to finally have the cut closed.

Doctors are going to be very hesitant to give you anything stronger than Advil/Tylenol these days. The medical boards have all cracked down hard on doctors giving narcotic prescriptions.

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I suggest that people in the province vote the liberals out then. It's been a wee bit too long here for this slashing and burning of healthcare and education. Time for a correction of sorts.

The Liberals actually plan to increase health care spending by about 500 million per year, which accounts for almost half of all new spending:

http://bcbudget.gov.bc.ca/2014/bfp/2014_budget_fiscal_plan.pdf

I did not vote Liberal, just stating the facts.

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