Meggs’ motion on St. Paul’s Hospital passes unanimously. My presentation to council on St. Paul’s Hospital on Thursday July 28.
Ok, so the agenda was changed and Cl. Meggs’ motion giving the city’s support for the renewal of St. Paul’s Hospital on the Burrard Street site was moved up in the agenda to the first item.
The motion passed with the fully support of the committee.
Here is my little presentation that I gave to support the motion.
“Mr. Chair and Councilors -thanks for the opportunity to speak to this important issue of the renewal of St. Paul’s hospital on the Burrard St. site.
My name is Brent Granby and I am Vice Chair of the St. Paul’s Coalition.
It’s really gratifying that Vancouver City Council is joining the growing consensus with Providence Health Care, the St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation, Vancouver Coastal Health, the MLA for Vancouver West End Spencer Chandra Herbert, the West End BIA, residents of the downtown peninsula and the Save St. Paul’s Coalition, that the renewal of St. Paul’s Hospital is a project that is urgently needs to be funded by the Provincial Government.
The Coalition has always viewed the renewal of the St. Paul’s as Possible, Preferable and Prudent. These have been our three Ps for redevelopment.
The Burrard Street site has enough capacity to make a phased development possible.
The Burrard Street site is equidistant and within walking distance between three resident populations – Yaletown, Coal Harbour and the West End, in addition to being ideally located to service the downtown business district.
The outstanding service that St. Paul’s Emergency Department demonstrated in the wake of the riots this year is testament to the importance of the hospital in providing health services during an emergency. One can imagine how critical it will be to have a full service publicly funded hospital in the event of a natural disaster. The downtown location of the hospital makes it a preferable location for a variety health services both for Vancouver and the entire province.
The renewal of St. Paul’s Hospital in a phased renovation on its current location is estimated to cost approximately $600 million as opposed to new construction cost being closer to $ 1 billion, making redevelopment on the Burrard site option a much more prudent and responsible use of public dollars.
PHC has developed a draft concept plan for hospital redevelopment. The hospital has been in urgent need of renovation since well before the first hospital redevelopment plan was announced in 2002. Now, 9 years later we have witnessed the failure of the hospital electrical system and yes, the elevators still break down more than 30 times a month.
Thanks to Councilor Meggs for bringing this motion forward. Thanks to the Mayor and Councilors for their continued support for the Hospital in urging the Provincial government to fund the development of a business case and to allocate the capital dollars for the renewal of a hospital that is used by citizens of the whole province of British Columbia.”