Delta Hospital won’t be part of a new provincial initiative aimed at cutting down surgical wait times.
Premier John Horgan this week announced the province will address long waiting lists for hip and knee replacements, allowing an extra 4,000 people to have the surgeries in the coming year.
The investments will total $175 million over the next two years with ongoing targeted funding in following years.
Although Delta Hospital has become a hub for day surgeries, Fraser Health notes it doesn’t provide such hip and knee procedures.
The procedures done at the hospital include ear/nose/throat, gynecology, dental, urology, plastic, orthopedic and general surgeries such as gall bladder removal.
Last year the hospital provided 5,421 procedures, according to the FHA. Those numbers don’t include procedures such as colonoscopies.
Meanwhile, from April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017, the hospital had over 2,000 visits to its cardiology department, 46,248 medical imaging exams, over half-million lab tests as well as 32,897 visits to the emergency department.
Last fall they put shovels to the ground to celebrate the start of construction of the $15.2 million Peter C. and Elizabeth Toigo Diagnostic Services Building, a new building double the size of the hospital's current diagnostic services area. It will enable the hospital to have 55,700 procedures annually, up from the current 42,900. Lab medicine on the second level will enable units processed to increase from 1.2 million to 1.7 million.
Scheduled for occupancy by October 2019, the new diagnostic services building is the first phase of the hospital's master plan that sets a vision for the next couple of decades, a vision put together by the health region and Delta Hospital Foundation, with input from others including the Delta Hospital Auxiliary.
A new residential care facility replacing Mountain View Manor, which first opened in 1980, is the second phase of that master plan. The foundation is working with Fraser Health to develop a business case for the project that will be submitted to the province for approval.
