Project Overview

Premier Christy Clark and Minister of Health Michael de Jong joined with CEO Dr. Nigel Murray to officially break ground March 21, 2011 for the new Emergency Department and Critical Care Tower being built at Surrey Memorial Hospital (SMH). With renovations planned for Surrey Memorial, the total capital cost of the project is $512 million.

The eight-storey tower will include a new Emergency Department (ED), several times the size of the existing one, the busiest in the province. Opening in 2013, the ED will include separate tracks for paediatric patients, mental health patients, seriously ill or injured, and those with more minor illnesses or injuries.

The rest of the tower will open in 2014. The addition of the tower and renovations to parts of the existing hospital will result in a net gain of 151 beds for Surrey Memorial, bringing its total to 650 beds.

Besides the ED, the tower will include:

• 48 private rooms in a neonatal centre of excellence, with adjacent paediatric pharmacy
• 25 Intensive Care beds
• 20 beds for seriously ill patients in the High Acuity Unit, plus six more beds on the same floor 
• Two medical floors of 36 beds each
• An expanded laboratory
• A rooftop helipad
• More than 440 new parking stalls
• Additional space for SMH’s clinical academic campus
  

With the added academic space, SMH will be able to provide post-graduate medical training as a satellite campus of the UBC School of Medicine, helping address the shortage of doctors in B.C.

Internal renovations will upgrade the hospital’s north entrance, Family Birthing Unit, Pharmacy, Linens and Logistics, Sterile Processing and Supply, and the kitchen.

Surrey is the fastest growing area within Fraser Health. The expansion and re-development of SMH will mean a significant improvement to patient care in Surrey, and will complement the new Jim Pattison Outpatient Care and Surgery Centre and the earlier 26 per cent expansion of acute care beds at Surrey Memorial since Fraser Health was created.