B.C. Premier John Horgan said it takes a community to build a hospital as he officially opened the new $331-million North Island Hospital campus in the Comox Valley on Tuesday.
In this case, that includes the volunteers, community leaders and individuals — including Gwyn Frayne — who fought to retain a hospital in the community.
Frayne, a former social worker and lifelong social activist, was with Citizens for Quality Healthcare group that fought a proposal to replace two aging health-care facilities in Comox Valley and Campbell River with one large regional hospital. She died of lung cancer on Oct. 16, 2014.
“Today’s official opening is a part of her legacy,” Horgan said in Courtenay.
Instead of a single large facility, the North Island Hospital includes two campuses, with 153 beds in Courtenay and 95 in Campbell River. The two hospitals cost a combined $606.2 million. The cost was shared 60-40 between the province and the Comox Strathcona Regional Hospital District.
The 428,700-square-foot Comox Valley hospital includes larger single-patient rooms, an expanded emergency room, six operating rooms, cardio-pulmonary diagnostic services, a larger maternity ward, a laboratory, a pharmacy, and an orthopedic clinic. It opened to patients on Oct. 1.
Unlike its predecessor, St. Joseph’s General Hospital, the new hospital includes a fixed MRI. In recent years, Island Health had a mobile service travelling to Campbell River, St. Joseph’s, Cowichan District Hospital in Duncan, and West Coast General Hospital in Port Alberni.
The hospital also provides a University of B.C. academic teaching space and a non-denominational spiritual room.
“When people visit a hospital, it is often at a challenging time in their lives, or for their loved ones,” Horgan said. “We want to make sure those families get the best possible care and support to be well.”
Health Minister Adrian Dix called it a “highly complex project” and a major transition, thanking staff and volunteers for their efforts.
But the new hospital project is not without its shortcomings. Despite years of planning and controversy to get to Tuesday’s official opening, residents are now concerned the helicopter landing pads at the new hospitals are not adequate.
Transport Canada is in the process of certifying the helicopter pads and there are concerns they will only rank a H1 rating instead of the H2 rating that most helicopters need to land and the rating that is outlined in the North Island Hospitals project contract. A H3 landing pad – is the highest and safest designation given out by Transport Canada.
“We are awaiting Transport Canada’s deliberations of what classification they are going to give to both facilities,” said Horgan. “This is critically important to ensure we have continuous quality care but if by chance they rule against the configuration, as it exists today, we’ll find other mechanisms to make sure health care is not compromised.”
Island Health said in Campbell River, helicopter landings are continuing to take place at the Campbell River Airport, located about 10-kiometres from the hospital campus, as has been the case since July 2014 when construction of the new campus got underway.
In the Comox Valley, the health authority said it has made alternate arrangements for helicopter landings at the Courtenay Airpark during the day and Comox Valley Airport at night. Patients will be transferred to and from the hospital campus by land ambulance.
“I’m hopeful Transport Canada will find in the favour of the two hospitals and the plan that they have in place but if they don’t there are secondary plans and we’ll implement those,” said Horgan.
In 2006, Island Health recommended that a new $306-million, 230-bed regional hospital be built to replace St. Joseph’s and the Campbell River and District Hospital, both more than 45 years old and 50 kilometres apart. The new hospital was to be located between Comox and Campbell River on the Inland Island Highway at Dove Creek Road, near Mount Washington.
The idea was met by protests, petitions and town hall meetings involving 24 communities.
The issue divided medical professionals, rural residents and urbanites.
One camp fought for the renovation of the community-based hospitals, and the Citizens for Quality Healthcare rolled out a 7,600-name petition against the new facility.
The other, deemed the “silent majority” by Island Health, lobbied for a new hospital centralizing a limited supply of health professionals, equipment and dollars.
On May 27, 2009, the health authority approved a plan to build two new acute-care hospitals in Campbell River and the Comox Valley.
St. Joseph’s, now known as The Views at St. Joseph’s, will continue offering residential care.
