St. Paul's hospital staff raise alarm about possible downgrading

The staff at Vancouver's St. Paul's Hospital is raising an alarm over the future of the historic facility and the possible downgrading of its specialized programs.

The hospital's medical staff association executive sent a letter to Premier Gordon Campbell expressing concerns that the health ministry and the local health authority are contemplating changes that would gut several key programs at the aging downtown Vancouver hospital.

"We have received messages from our peers in the Lower Mainland health authorities that these organizations and the Ministry of Health are contemplating options and developing plans that would, in our opinion, critically damage St. Paul's Hospital's key provincial programs and the hospital's international reputation as a centre of research, teaching and care excellence," said the letter, dated Jan. 30.

The letter, which was signed by the Dr. Dara Behroozi, the hospital's medical staff association president, and other members of the association's executive, goes on to say that staff want assurance that the hospital will not be dismantled.

"Any process that begins with contemplating a downgrading of St. Paul's is inherently flawed and naive. We believe the beginning point should be how to add to St. Paul's current levels of expertise and human potential, not subtract from it," said the letter.

Health Minister George Abbott office also reportedly received a copy of the letter, but neither he nor the premier were available for a response.

Hidden plans revealed: NDP critic

A report issued in 2000 found that the then-88-year-old building was leaking, that pieces of the aging structure were falling off, that it was too small to accommodate demands for emergency and psychiatric services, and that the old brick building would collapse in a major earthquake.

In April 2007, local residents and staff expressed concern when Providence Health Care, which runs the facility for Vancouver Coast Health, floated a possible plan to build a replacement on the shores of False Creek.

NDP Health critic Adrian Dix says the Liberal government broke its 2002 promise to redevelop and expand St. Paul's and has since supported the preparation of plans to downgrade the facility.

"This is just the latest evidence that the Campbell government, while publicly refusing to disclose St. Paul's fate on the eve of an election, continues to work behind the scenes to dismantle it," Dix said in a release Tuesday.

As an internationally recognized acute care, academic and research hospital, St. Paul's has established several acclaimed programs that provide care to residents from Vancouver and across B.C, said Dix.

Its cardiac care centre performs 33 per cent of all cardiac surgeries in B.C., including more than a quarter of the province's most complicated and life-threatening cases, he said.

"It takes decades to build the high caliber clinical care teams and expertise St. Paul's currently has," said Dix.

Metro Vancouver is still struggling with past acute-care cuts, and Vancouver Coastal Health projects that the Lower Mainland's current shortage of acute care beds will rise to 750 beds by 2010, he said.

The November 2003 closure of Saint Mary's hospital, another Catholic acute-care hospital, also offers a harbinger of St. Paul's future, he said.

"St. Paul's current situation shares many parallels with Saint Mary's. The Campbell government first hollowed out its acute-care services, and reduced its specialty programs and budget. Announcement of its permanent closure followed a few months later," said Dix.