THE BC NDP said on Friday that the last time BC Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson was in charge of the Surrey Hospital, he sold the land it was supposed to be built on.
Now Wilkinson is frantically papering over his Surrey Hospital past and playing politics with people’s health care in Surrey.
Under the BC NDP, Surrey’s new hospital is full steam ahead with a tremendous amount of work already completed:
- An architectural firm has been hired:
- On July 30, 2020, Fraser Health awarded a $1.2M contract to IBI Group Architects (Canada) Inc. for design services for the hospital.
- It says that “The NSH (New Surrey Hospital) Project will be located on a greenfield site in the Cloverdale area in Surrey.”
- Clinical service planning is underway:
- On Oct. 30, 2019, Fraser Health announced they were about to award a $250,000 contract for clinical service planning to Resource Planning Group (RPG) because “RPG is ready to commence the full scope of work immediately.”
- Fraser Health also awarded a $205,619 contract to Cannon Design for “strategic clinical planning consultant services” in 2018 for the concept planning stage.
- John Horgan’s BC NDP government owns the land at 5500 180 Street, which is the site of the new Hospital and added a cancer centre to the plans.
- The project has an estimated budget of $1-2 billion, and is in the BC NDP’s $23 million capital plan from Budget 2020.
- The concept plan has been approved and the business plan is being finalized, which will be followed by procurement and construction.
- Construction is expected to start by the end of 2021.
The NDP pointed out: “Wilkinson’s own candidate [Gulzar Cheema] says it was “wrong” for Wilkinson to sell the land, and Surrey didn’t get “full respect” under the BC Liberals. We can’t let Andrew Wilkinson set us back. “
Jinny Sims, BC NDP candidate for Surrey-Panorama said: “The last time we trusted Andrew Wilkinson to build a hospital for Surrey, he sold the land at a discount and left us with nothing. The BC Liberals spent 16 years cutting taxes to the wealthiest British Columbians and neglecting health care. Andrew Wilkinson sold out Surrey once and he will do it again. We can’t afford that risk.”
