I am writing on behalf of your medical community to gain your support for the installation and operation of a computed tomography (CT) scanner at Squamish General Hospital.
In 2021, access to CT imaging is the standard of care in any emergency department. But, Squamish, with a population of nearly 25,000 people, is now the largest population centre in British Columbia to not have a CT. The Squamish General Hospital, in addition to providing care for Squamish and Sea to Sky residents, is also increasingly utilized by visitors to the corridor who come to enjoy our beautiful home. But we, at SGH, are forced to try to provide your care without having access to imaging which is available in every other hospital in BC serving a similar-sized population.
The lack of CT availability in Squamish increasingly limits our ability to practice safe, modern medicine. In the Emergency Department, if you are a patient and a CT is required as a part of your work-up, you must be referred and transferred to the Lions Gate Hospital Emergency Department in North Vancouver to arrange CT.
This requires your MDs to spend time communicating with the LGH Emergency Department instead of caring for other patients. It also ties up the Sea to Sky’s already very limited BC Ambulance resources, adds a further delay to your diagnosis and adds another burden on the ED physicians at Lion’s Gate Hospital to unnecessarily duplicate your assessment.
And you then need to find your own way home to Squamish after being dropped off by ambulance at Lions Gate Hospital.
Likewise, if you are an inpatient at SGH requiring CT, you will need a private or BC Ambulance transfer with a nurse escort to the Lions Gate Hospital radiology department.
This requires you and your nurse to embark on a nauseating ride in the back of an ambulance down the Sea to Sky Highway.
It also requires hours of nursing care which adds strain on the nursing staff in a unit that is nearly always operating at capacity.
As a Squamish resident, if you are booked for a CT through your family practitioner, you must drive Highway 99 either up to Whistler or down to LGH to have your outpatient CT done.If you are elderly and no longer driving or if you have no access to a vehicle, you must then rely on friends or family members to take days off work to drive you. If you are not fortunate enough to have friends or family in town, you may never get your scan without being in hospital.
The Sea to Sky Corridor, and Squamish in particular, is in a population boom.
Our population is not only growing but also growing older.
To serve an aging and growing population, SGH will inevitably need to grow.
The number of local specialists will also need to expand. Unfortunately, without CT capability, it will be very difficult to recruit new specialists to town.
Again, this means you will need to travel more often for your medical care.
This has a pronounced effect on seniors who have more specialist appointments on average and are more likely to require transportation from family or friends.
We do not deserve to live in the most populous town in British Columbia without a CT.
The CT for Squamish Committee, with the support of our local ED committee and the SGH medical staff, wants to take this message to the local community.
In the coming months, we will need your voice and support in asking Vancouver Coastal Health to continue to fulfill its mandate to provide high-quality medical facilities to the District of Squamish by installing and operating a CT at SGH.
We will be in touch again shortly with specific instructions on how you can support us in obtaining this critical piece of equipment sorely overdue in our hospital.
Dr. James Cranston,
co-lead Emergency Department,
Squamish General Hospital
