The City of New Westminster will continue to pressure the province for an expansion to Royal Columbian Hospital - but is fully aware nothing will happen in the near future.
Mayor Wayne Wright said "everything is on hold" until the May 14 provincial election and until the province sorts out some of its finances.
"That hospital is under funded compared to other hospitals," he added. "That is wrong, especially when it is a regional hospital."
Health Minister Margaret MacDiarmid recently wrote to Wright to thank him for meeting with her to discuss his concerns about Royal Columbian Hospital. They met during the Union of British Columbian Municipalities convention in Victoria last September.
"As we discussed, the hospital redevelopment project is very complex," she wrote. "It involves multiple stages of work phased over several years to allow for the construction and renovation process, while maintaining health care services at the hospital."
Wright said the city will go back to Victoria after the election to reiterate the need for an expansion to Royal Columbian Hospital.
"I honestly believe the time will come that whoever the government is will need to reinvigorate it and get it fixed," he said.
In 2011, Fraser Health submitted a concept expansion and renovation plan to the provincial government that would address its need for space at the hospital. Royal Columbian Hospital made headlines when overcrowding in the emergency ward resulted in patients being treated in the hospital's lobby and in the Tim Hortons' coffee shop in the hospital.
Recently, an emergency room doctor at the hospital joined physicians from around the province in voicing concerns about overcrowding in hospitals, as well as a shortage of ER doctors.
