Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke is aghast that Surrey Memorial Hospital has only 671 beds while Vancouver has 2,572.
Surrey has 671 beds in total, and within that figure there are 467 acute care beds, zero long-term-care beds, 16 pediatric beds, 42 maternity beds and 84 mental health and addictions beds. Of Vancouver's total 2,572 hospital beds, and among those 1,138 are acute care, 535 are long term, 252 are pediatric beds, 103 are maternity beds and 377 are for mental health and addictions patients.
"It's actually pretty shocking," Locke told the Now-Leader on Tuesday. "The disparity for our residents is incredible."
After the provincial budget was revealed last week Locke met with Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon concerning Surrey's infrastructure.
"I think the most important thing for all of us is Surrey is our lack of funding for our hospitals so I talked to him about infrastructure and those needs. He did hear that and so we'll continue to talk about that."
Locke noted that while Surrey is "quite prepared" to build housing "as fast and as well as we can to meet the needs, we get the need, but at the same time the Province needs to spend a lot more energy and build in Surrey."
"Health care has got to be number one."
She said even with the 168 beds slated for the new hospital and cancer centre in Cloverdale, Vancouver will still be 300 per cent ahead of Surrey. "It's significant."
A recent housing needs report that came before council shows Surrey needs between 53,000 and 55,000 more houses over the next five years.
"Not realistic," Locke says. "We'll do what we can but only what we can."
Locke said she was "very disappointed" the latest budget included no mention of a second tower for SMH.
"The premier and all of the Surrey MLAs, almost, well exactly a year ago today, announced the second tower at Surrey Memorial. So I was very disappointed not to see the second tower at Surrey Memorial in this budget, at least at a preliminary stage. Eventually just doesn't cut it. It just doesn't cut it – it's meaningless."
White Rock, incidentally, has 325 hospital beds. Among those, there are 130 are acute care beds, 150 are long-term-care beds, there are zero pediatric beds, seven are maternity beds and 11 are for mental health and addiction.
