Major facility upgrades at Burnaby Hospital and two new patient-care towers will give people in this growing community faster access to better health care.
“Every person in B.C. deserves quality public health care, and our government is working hard to upgrade, expand and modernize health-care facilities and hospitals in Burnaby and around the province,” said Premier John Horgan.
“Burnaby is growing rapidly, and the hospital needs to be upgraded and modernized to keep up. This significant investment will help deliver the health care people in Burnaby need in world-class facilities.”
The redevelopment, which at more than $1.3 billion will be among the province’s largest-ever health care investments, will impact every part of the existing hospital campus. It will add two new patient-care towers with new wards and operating rooms, a total of almost 400 beds (the majority in single rooms), a bigger emergency department and a new cancer treatment centre. The last big upgrades at Burnaby Hospital happened more than 40 years ago.
“People in the community have a close connection to Burnaby Hospital, as do I, and I’m proud our government is following through on its commitment to redevelop the facility with a visionary plan to meet the public health-care needs of residents,” said Adrian Dix, Minister of Health. “After years of inaction, it’s a big day for people in Burnaby as they will be able to access care in a state-of-the-art hospital for decades to come.”
The Burnaby Hospital redevelopment is part of work underway to provide better health care throughout across British Columbia. In the last two years, the Province has announced almost $4 billion in capital investments for 11 hospitals, with more to come.
In November 2017, government directed Fraser Health to begin planning a complete redevelopment for the hospital – a significantly more substantive commitment than the conceptual renewal plan for the hospital announced in April 2017.
The redevelopment begins with a new six-storey, 11,858 square-metre, 78-bed, patient-care tower. The tower will include an upgraded mental health and substance use inpatient unit, and a new maternity ward to offer enhanced care for new parents and their families. The tower is expected to open in 2023, with construction starting in 2021.
The redevelopment will also upgrade the support facilities building on campus, creating a larger emergency department, increasing the number of treatment bays from 47 to 62, and adding a new medical device reprocessing unit. It will also add four new operating rooms, bringing the total to nine; as well as 18 new pre-operative and post-operative recovery spaces. These upgrades are expected to be complete by 2024.
The second patient-care tower will have 160 new beds and a state-of-the-art cancer treatment centre. It is expected to open in 2027. Detailed business planning for the tower is underway, with construction expected to begin in 2024.
This investment builds on the government’s work toward enhancing health-care services for people in Burnaby and around the province, including:
performing thousands more MRI tests throughout the province each year through the Surgical and Diagnostic Imaging Strategy;
increasing access to team-based health care with the launch of three local primary care networks and the opening of the new Burnaby Urgent and Primary Care Centre; and better access to joint replacement surgery, through the Fraser Health hip and knee replacement program, which is increasing the number of hip and knee replacement surgeries in the region.