Renovations are now underway on what will be a new 59-bed acute mental health facility in Surrey across from Surrey Memorial Hospital.The highly specialized $24-million Timber Creek tertiary care facility, at the former Bear Creek Lodge seniors home, is expected to take some of the last psychiatric patients being transferred as Riverview Hospital shuts down.The site at 13646 94A Avenue will take complex mentally ill clients, who might be on medication for schizophrenia or bipolar illness and dealing with other health challenges, such as diabetic complications.Timber Creek will include a 12-bed intensive care unit for stays of two to four weeks for intensive treatment, support and stabilization.Two 15-bed assessment and treatment units and a 17-bed intensive tertiary rehabilitation unit are geared to adults needing longer stays of two to six months.It’s targeted to open in June of 2012.“Developing these highly-specialized programs will allow Fraser Health to offer its communities a broader range of mental health services and provide the care and support that these individuals need closer to their homes and in our communities,” said Lois Dixon, Fraser Health’s executive director of mental health and addiction services.Six beds at Timber Creek will be for patients from the Vancouver Coastal region, with the rest coming from Fraser Health, including many expected from Surrey.The project is part of a broader plan to build a total of 318 additional mental health beds at nine sites in the Lower Mainland at a total cost of more than $80 million.Under the Riverview redevelopment project, patients are being transferred to B.C.’s five regional health authorities as new facilities open.So far 160 beds have been opened across Fraser Health.

Surrey Now Leader