Hospital campus officially opens in Courtenay
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 nondenominational 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.
Courtenay-Comox MLA RonnaRae Leonard said the campus is something the community has supported from the outset.
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 communitybased 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.