Health-care facility for Sooke wins backing of CRD panel

Sooke Mayor Maja Tait’s call for a new primary care health-care facility in her rapidly growing community has won support from the Capital Regional District hospitals committee.

The CRD’s hospitals and housing committee decided Wednesday to recommend the Capital Region Hospital District Board, Island Health and the province support building a new health care facility in Sooke.

Tait, who has called the lack of health-care facilities in her community a crisis, said more than 4,000 of the Sooke’s area’s 16,000 residents are without a family doctor. While the community is too close to Victoria to be classified as rural, it’s geographically isolated. The 30-kilometre trip to the nearest hospital in View Royal via winding Highway 14 takes at least 45 minutes by car and is especially challenging for those who rely on public transit.

The only X-ray facility in the community is analogue — the equivalent to a rotary phone or VCR — and operated two days a week through a private firm.

The Sooke region does not have a hospital or an urgent-care treatment facility.

A medical clinic with seven physicians operates 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday, with an emergency-access clinic open 2.5 hours a day, seven days a week.

But two of the community’s physicians plan to retire within four years and Sooke’s population is predicted to grow by 15 per cent, or 2,400, by 2019.

While all provincial election candidates for Sooke support improved primary health care in the community, Tait told the committee there’s no time to wait.

“It’s much like Highway 14. They’re going to study it,” she said. “Then in 15 years they do another study and there’s a few short-term outcomes, like repainting the lines. That’s great but it still isn’t making the road safer, straighter or providing another access.”

Access to health care is “life or death for our residents,” Tait said.

A midwife serves the community, but several women have had to be in hospital for childbirth.

“The road can be closed, flooded shut. All those things. It’s something I hear from families and it has actually put some families off from having a child,” Tait said.

Health-related capital projects are generally funded through cost sharing in which the Capital Region Hospital District picks up 40 per cent of the cost and Island Health the rest, on behalf of the province. Operating costs are funded by Island Health.

The CRD can indicate to Island Health it supports the development of a new primary health-care facility in Sooke but it can’t act independently, said CRD chief administrative officer Bob Lapham. The CRD needs to partner with the health authority and receive funding from the province, he said. “So it’s very much a joint process.”